Her bottom —

like a Sherman tank?

What    would that look like?
She’s sitting

on a low stone wall

facing street.
It’s a 1997

person, passing behind her,

who lobs the simile.
Those words,

directed towards

her flesh,

suggests a drift

backwards

into history.         Imaginations,

travelling out, dredge pictures

of Vehicles — Military

mind as reader

runs through her memory: which

famous Sherman

was the tank

named after?

How    did it move?

Which model Sherman

WAS THE PASSERBY

THINKING OF?
However crude the simile

it’s not a grenade, can’t fall

back, upon the 1940s (before

she was born) (where the tank’s

action was)

real, with its pin out.
No simile

can smash one’s bones

from its

machine-gun turret

or crush a human form

hers — or anyone’s —

as the Sherman might have, once,

rolling casually on, leaving

behind

a death …
Wording

round anything

suggesting drift … thoughts

moving effortlessly forwards,

backwards,

        sideways

into abstractions

quite bottomless.