My mother used to believe she'd run people over...

by Tom Harding

Sunday 25th April 2010 11:14 pm

 

My mother used to believe she'd run people over

And would spend the long blue evenings

Circling the same roads looking for the aftermath

Of an incident she'd inadvertently caused.

It seemed normal then, driving round in the dying light,

Peering into hedgerows for fallen bodies,

Scanning the horizon for blue lights.

She'd massaged these distortions into a routine,

In between the school run and evening meal.

Just as now my own diluted obsessions

I leave until I'm alone. At night

When the minds reel plays, spooling and spooling 

Till sanity decamps the rail

And I find myself downstairs at midnight

Checking the doors and windows are still locked.

Then again at two and four

As the wind rattles the fixings 

The world seems as fragile as theatre set.

I'll see myself, wide awake at some ungodly hour,

Testing the back door for the fifth time,

Engrossed in the seriousness of the ritual,

That dim reflection is my mothers face,

Earnestly preventing the worlds untimely collapse.

The look of sincere employment

Unique to the beleaguered and obsessed.