John Grey

 

 

CHILDLESS

Alone with her barrenness,
after a puff on a roach and a glass of wine,
the conversation with herself is done.
“My assistant will show you the way out,” she says.

But then, knowing no better,
the talk starts up again in her head.
“Why would you ever want a child anyhow?”
it begins.
“Why not just get yourself s tattoo instead?
Sure, that can be painful.
But only for a short time.”

What makes it worse
is that she lives on a new estate.
Couples are mostly her age.
Their departure point is
lots of children running about
in so many yards.
Hers is blocked with the usual miscarriages
and unhelpful fertility tests.

It’s a typical afternoon.
The sun shines clear and warm but indifferent.
It once gave birth to the Earth.
But that was billions of years ago.

 

MORNING IN THE CITY

Everything’s shuttered.
And yet the city’s ripe for roaming.
It’s the hours between
the closing and the opening.
And it’s time for some of that ghost-fog
to puff up through the grids.
Hardly anyone’s around.
The emptiness feels like a poem.

Some guy with an empty cap nods at me.
He’s no tragic figure,
just part of the morning roll call.
And the women on the stoop
look like they’ve been painted there.

Traffic from the night shift
is still dragging its golden tail.
The street-sweeper rolls by.
A little girl looks up at me
through a basement window.

 

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