The Man in the Violet Polo Shirt by  Susan Grindley

Like a mime-artist performing brain-surgery,
the man in the violet polo-shirt –
seeing that neither driver would back down and back up,
and after a final, ‘Why should I?’ from each –
coaxed the Vauxhall between the 277 and the steel cage
enclosing the road works.

At spitting-range there was another bout of shouting
but, from the bus, the street and the cars,
backed-up, hooting, in Frampton Park Road
and Well Street, we could see it was a win-win situation,
so when the man in the violet polo-shirt came back onto the bus,
some of us clapped.

[This poem first appeared in Rising magazine.]