Thumb out to the flow of traffic, and hoping not

to get robbed, mugged, or murdered.

But also a lift. I step into cars, vans, and trucks. I once rode a rocket

fired down the M1 – a Ford Cosworth, stolen – like a sonic boom jet

in the outside lane.

I meet Samaritans and chancers.

One man will explain Islam, another will talk about

kissing lorry drivers. A fashion designer, who picks me up

from a garage forecourt, will give me a mint

while her dog growls from the back seat.

On a roundabout near Bedford,

another hitcher waits. He wears a trench coat, and boots

once worn by a paratrooper. He also has a crucifix

tattooed on his forehead, just below his mohican. We say hello.

He's going to a party in Leeds. I'm going to Leicester, to see my sister.

No one picks him up. No one picks me up.

Occasionally, I think about him. Punk Jesus on a pilgrimage.

More often I think about the teacher who cried

recalling a holiday to Scotland

with his dying son,

and how they took a row boat onto a loch

so thick with mist

that the known world shrank to a bubble of white.

Borne along the highway in a Vauxhall Cavalier, I saw,

through his eyes,

how the mist would clear and a castle

reveal, the unexpected ramparts sealed with moss.

And then the boy in the boat

leaping ashore. Up and over the broken stone,

joyous. A prince in a fable with a palace of his own.

Hitchhiker was a Guardian Poem of the Week,

and a finalist in the 2021 Bedford Poetry Competition