On Reading

She is not the wait,
Nor the waiting room,
Not the knot or the tremor,
The saltwater at the corner
Of the page,
Stuck at a step, dimmed
And sharpened,
Not the swooping worried
waiting, waiting,
Each tannoyed name
A ticking fret.

She is not what end
May sit silently inside her,
Or not.
She is not the disinterested
Reception,
The anxious homecoming,
The absence of bunting and
Balloons,
Where family collapses in
On itself, themselves
At her leaving
In a shriek from the gut,
Or not.

She is a rainbow framed night,
She is a trip to the moon.

On Reading

She is not this office where she
May or may not
Find her future selves,
Not scrutiny row,
The flurry of curve balls,
Framed questions and
Shapeless replies
Spoke downwards.

She is not what she should
Have worn
Or said
Or unsaid,
Nor the flinging up of hands
When the doing’s done,
Nor the feedback sought
But not sought.
Not the air frustrated
With evaporations.

Instead, these eyes
Wonder at how

Colours glimpsed
in a pitch sky,
Can lift your mind
Right out of orbit
For a while.