These empty spaces
inside of me
composed of God-knows-what:
certainly lacking in originality.

Empty waiting rooms
in empty railways stations
no more smoky-smell of coal and steam.

Caught up upon an evening’s desultoriness
a girl’s slight distress as she leaves the silent ward
mingles with a spine-tingling haunting of the imagination.

A prelude to walking death, echoes the shadows
of those who walked before us;
sitting, once-upon-a-time, in an A&E trauma room
where an isolated cry punctures the sky
disturbs the hush of illness.

Outside the ever present caw-caw-cawing of the brazen crows
across the road, in another country, another century,
when the fire work glow of household fires welcomed
tired soldiers home to share the beds of strangers.

And still the cries bounce from wall-to-wall
echoing through these empty rooms.

.