TIME & PLACE

AT 7 am

I watch your car pull away
with barely a sound,
gliding into traffic, a huge, white swan,
no ripples in its wake.
You don’t look back—
no final glimpse, no wave farewell.
You leave me, standing,
rain soaked,
on this dirty pavement,
in this dirty town
at 7 am.
I heave my rucksack,
roll its burden across shoulders too tired to care
and raw pain stabs.
You’ve gone –
reversing into your old life with easy confidence,
while I, in battered, toe-scuffed boots,
inch my way forward,
alone.

Some poems create their impact by doing nothing more than examining a moment in time. They look at it through