Our city children are its eyes and ears, its tongue and nostrils, closer to the ground, breathing the city, playing on the front line.


We miss it,


we’re work-rushed, screen-buried, ear-phone deafened. We can’t see it.


These imps guard the city, rucksack-pack its pulse, gasp-gather its future, clasp its embers


in snowball-numb hands.


With their jelly-baby breath they bellow the city’s fl ame, turning its cathedrals into caramel, transforming its adults into heroes. For them the city is glass, see-through, fragile


and all made of the same stuff , with a promise of a rainbow at every turn.


One little boy


writes every city street with a looping perfect hand.


One little girl


translates every city sight with the colours of her voice.


Joseph Coelho


Text copyright © Joseph Coelho Illustrations © Kate Milner This poem and illustrations are taken from Overheard in a Tower Block, published by Otter-Barry Books.


Poem pp.4-5.indd 3


09/10/2019 14:36


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