Poetry

Delivery Driver

Alison McNaught

You recognise him: the stance, the mumble,

“Six tons of sandy loam (in bags?), in here?”

The sharp intake of breath, like a tiger wheezing.

“Can’t be done,” he growls.

You suspect it can.

But he rolls out excuses like

Tony Blackburn plays hits from the sixties.

“Sorry love, health and safety,

too narrow; too high,” he purrs.

From the look in his eye

you see you lost your brains with your waist.

No sensible person would expect

him to deliver six tons of sandy

loam (in bags) to the slope behind

the wall in your garden with a drive

that’s too narrow for his lorry.

He’ll “dump them in the road” if you want.

Six tons of sandy loam in the road!

It’d be lethal!

Not his problem: he’s offered.

If you don’t choose to take his advice,

what can he do? He hasn’t got all day

and you’re the one who ordered

six tons of sandy loam (in bags)

in the first place,

expecting him to

deliver it.