BODMIN ROAD STATION

Early afternoon in May,
the platform empty,
red faded brickwork
warm in soft sunlight,
a stench of oil
from blackened sleepers
overhung by rhododendron.

Beyond the access road,
old carriages rust
in bright streaming light;
behind a rutted car park,
pinewoods stand,
crowd over a green hill,
above the slow, brown river.

Somewhere high overhead
in unbroken blue
a single-engined aircraft
drones regularly, recedes.

No other sound.
No breeze.
No-one else here.

Stillness settles like dust.

RUNAWAY

Today, the first day that Ruth
failed to recognise her husband.
He always said he'd care for her
until this day, but will go on
in case there is some sign
of an improvement.

But, dementia is a dark locomotive -
a roaring, racing runaway
on a steep, descending track;
speeding past the unlit halts of age
without a glance -

and Harry, 80 now, and ill,
the lone, clinging passenger.

Days, too, will race more quickly now,
his duty, duties, filling time;
until each minute overflows.

In the craters of their days
he wishes what he cannot face;
their mutual fates now interlaced -

He outwardly, her inwardly
engulfed.

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