By my dad’s bed and the bridge
Before the tram-stop; elsewhere
Though the sunset’s lost
Trees, buildings and dips
In the ground the cause.
I post to Facebook something
4.
Brick steps. I’m going up them
The wire fence pushed aside
Behind traffic passing; to Salford
And Manchester. Some bush or
Flower brushes my face I find
Nothing of interest. Richard you can
Call it a day if you like. The viaduct
Disappear here forever
5.
Proving the truth of that Einstein epigraph
About times future, present and past being
Constructs, essentially; in hospital all sense
Is gone of night becoming day. I bite my tongue
Down on a correction. Me, I’m forever getting
The day wrong
6.
I text his sister: he seems better today
He has more colour; is more talkative
And is cracking jokes with the nurses
Doctors & orderlies. I hit send.
I don’t say: his awareness of his
Condition and the pain he seems in, still
Is why I’m stood here, right now, crying.
A Metrolink worker approaches
And says “in January the line will be down”
7.
The buildings drop suddenly away
And those lights I see I know to be
Manchester. Nightly, given me a
Different view of the city. I must
Remember it. The Mosque; the
Closed shops; the takeaways; open
Neon lit. From the rail replacement bus
I’ll be back there soon. Yesterday my Father
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