Snow on a Birmingham Forecourt (After visiting Kerouac’s manuscript)   Distracted by a cry of it’s snowing and the crumpled fiver for tobacco left as an afterthought in your hand. I watched the fickle flecks wend their way across the grey fence guarding the foreground, craning to see the source of simple chemistry; filling the tank with our route home. Kerouac’s scroll had floated beyond our fingers, just minutes before, aching at the chill of glass, we had sighed for the hand-scrawled edits and jazz crackling from a crooning speaker; kissed over the journal entry – write as you might live – we signed the visitors’ book; bought postcards; assured ourselves that this was one road trip that wouldn’t be written into a fickle-snow bound volume. Sonia Hendy-Isaac If you have any comments on this poem, Sonia Hendy-Isaac would like to hear from you.