Red duffle coat girl

The girl in the red duffle coat
is on her way to art college.

It's her first day
and a new autumn is in the air
(first leaves turning red;
starlings scattering with the energy).

"I can do anything I want to do,"
says the girl in the red duffle coat
as she walks beneath the crumbling
shop-fronts
(rotten wood eeks out; centuries of
musty dust, delicious).

It's ancient here in this city,
beneath the cathedral bells and brewing houses.
It's ancient here
and the energy rises up
as the girl in the red duffle coat takes her seat in the classroom:

a converted warehouse thick
with the smell
of old stone and chemical inks;
resonant with the sound
of rolling presses, the clank and clang
of cogs and wheels, of metal tools

and paper sheets;

processes, notebooks, ideas and dreams

all here

in this magic darkroom.

"I can do anything I want to do,"
says the girl in the red duffle coat
with a whirr of excitement in her belly
and a shining outwards
from her heart.