Philip Gross, past winner of the T S Eliot Prize, finds poetry in motion in the athletic manoeuvres of a young skate-boarder. The poem comes from his latest collection, A Bright Acoustic (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95).

A CADENCE:

the slack-jointed run

   of the young skateboarder off

~

the precinct ramp, with a kick

~

to mount the kerb, along/atop

    a low wall, barely slowing -

~

eyes down, not so much on his feet

~

as in his body, more haste in the flapping

   of his loose tee, or his bum-hung britches

~

than the slow long stoop and push

~

of each pulse of his glide

   to an inch from the drop

~

where the wall ends; with barely a twitch

he’s tripped up the board-tip

   so it spins free, him

~

in mid stride now without it, to land

~

as it offers itself to his hand

   just snug  to deal on

~

to the pavement where his next

~

step delivers them

   together, a descending

~

grace-note, to the theme. . .