Red Phone Boxes
Adam Kammerling

Between Haywards Heath and Gatwick,
there's a trackside clearing deep in scrub
where thirty red phone boxes stand in an arc.
Their positioning, deliberate and deep in woods,
makes a Pagan ritual: red hoods, torches, prayers
to bygone England, a sacrifice of rabbit.

On Lewes Road in Brighton, a red phone box has been
nudged to death by a long, slow storm. 19 of 26 windows
smashed, chunks chewed out its frame, old conquest’s names
graff-tattooed on face and back. DIO, COST, MSG, ERKS.
Anti-fash stickers melt on its skin. At the box's top,
four waspish crowns glare out like weary compass points.
They don't know how their house got into such a state.