April 2019 Competition Winner

Waiting

Sue Morgan

 

I was at Crewe station

between trains.

I had a call to make

from one of the old pay-phones.

 

After, I went to sit on a wooden bench

to wait for the onward connection.

A nun came to sit beside me.

An omen I thought.

 

I wondered whether to ask her to pray.

But decided not to intrude

on her silence,

the black and white of her habit.

 

My Mother’s death caught instead

between the insistent rumbling

of the tracks

and the cooing of feral pigeons.

 

Menu