Alone upon the motorway

A single trainer sat

Like a horse without a rider

Or a ball without a bat;

I wondered how a trainer

Came to be lying there

Husbandless or wifeless,

Just one, that was a pair?

Was it dropped out of a window?

Was it thrown with sudden hate

At an overtaking trailer

On a forced decelerate?

Did it make a bid for freedom,

And wriggle through a snag

Developed as it travelled

In a strapped-on carrier bag?

Did it callously abandon

A hitch-hiker on the hop?

Or was it just forgotten

In a quick unscheduled stop?

And what’s the other doing,

That shod the other foot?

Is it reaching from a roof-rack,

Or delving in a boot

To find its missing partner?

Is it overcome with joy?

Or perhaps it simply envies

This one’s power to annoy?

Is it lost, bereft and widowed?

Will it it weep from each lace hole,

Or seek another trainer

To accompany its sole?