Caravans
The genial squatters come,
a cavalcade of beige, pitching up
beside thickening woods.
Local girls walk their dogs,
hoping for a soft-haired Prince
and a week of flirting at the gates.
Ignition keys removed, these people
want the noises trees can offer:
each natural stir lost to them
in urban lives. They eat outdoors,
adjust to cold, walk for miles,
flora sticking to their muddy boots.
Then there’s night: the family
hunched inside, each van
a lit snail, stuck to dewy grass.