All the men who left

Mr America

She’s on an interstate bus watching a half-moon rise into the corner of the window.

Her fingers itch with sweat.  

She sold two pints of blood for the ticket. 

She was going to marry Mr America. 

He changed his mind. 

Everyone can change their mind.

Hadn’t they all said she was just his little bit of English?

She’ll wait all day at the airport 

to go home to where it is not home. 

She’ll be sad for a long time. 

He’ll leave her a cassette of love songs. 

She’ll marry someone else. 

She’ll remember the bus. 

Sometimes she’ll remember the moon in a dirty window.

Mr Scotland

He ran with the horses once a year 

legs so long they almost buckled. 

He had a blue Suzuki 500 and a tartan. 

She’ll remember the cold. 

Sleeping in a red Renault 

police knocking on misted windows. 

A too-thin duvet in a high-ceilinged room. 

He’ll leave her the LPs and the car. 

She’ll remember hardly breathing 

in the week before he went, 

being careful not to touch his freckled legs 

downy with ginger.

Mr Coventry

They cut him almost in half to save him. 

It worked for a year.  

At first she’ll remember nothing. 

Then she’ll remember the sky 

threatening rain. 

A slow walk 

stopping at each bench. 

Rain nestled in the hollows of his clavicles. 

He was all bone. 

Much later she’ll remember the songs 

in the Earlsdon Cottage, 

the sea at Sidari 

dancing with phosphorescence. 

The scrape of metal loops 

as a doctor closed a blue curtain.


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Winter’s Poem