A snail called Chris
slithers along Old Kent Road,
a soft-bodied wanderer
in a world of straight lines.
He crawls toward Asda, seeking food,
not knowing its processed glare.
Traffic roars around him
like Brobdingnagian beasts,
its pulse too fast for his quiet timing.
People stream past; the shadow of a stomping heel is a possibility.

Meanwhile, in Burgess Park,
Lesley the snail spirals calmly by the lake,
a creature shaped by green light and open space,
her rhythms tuned to wind, birds,
and the patient geometry of leaves.
She keeps her shell strong with calcium,
her life soft as moss,
anchored in a log’s cool crevice,
unhypnotised by the city’s bright machinery.

One day, sensing something wrong,
Chris leaves old kent road behind.
Shaking from old shocks,
but held together by the quiet integrity of his slime trail,
he inches toward the distant trees.
A saxophonist and a ukulele player busk nearby,
and their riffs shimmer through him
like rain on his shell.

At last, he reaches the shade where Lesley lives.
The diffused light soothes him;
the lake breathes.
And when he sees her,
Lesley is radiant in her spiral home,
he knows he has reached a place
where his smallness fits the world again.