Busker by Penny Ayers

Busker

No one has asked her to hold the world,

carry it each day to where there’ll be people—

today a precinct of shops, mostly empty.

Her voice is soft, sometimes keening. No words.

At her feet, a nest of twigs threaded

with grasses, teasels of wool.

Some drop in coins as they hurry on.

Others look more closely, see our world,

blue with ruffled seas,

brown with crumpled mountains,

green with prairies,

so fragile, like a Christmas bauble

that would shatter if she let it go.

Yet they hurry on, scared

she’ll ask them to take it from her,

scared that one day she’ll be gone.

Penny Ayers has been published online and in various magazines, including ‘Ink, Sweat and Tears’, ‘Spelt’, ‘Broken Spine’ and upcoming in ‘Woman Halved’. She has won prizes and been shortlisted in various competitions, most recently in the 2025 Wolverhampton Literature Festival poetry competition.  She helps run the Gloucestershire Writers’ Network and has read at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.