These empty spaces

Inside of me

Composed of God-knows-what:

Certainly lacking in originality

Empty waiting rooms

In empty railways stations

The smoky-smell of coal and steam

Caught up upon an evening’s desultoriness

A girl’s slight distress as she leaves the empty nest

Mingles with the spine-tingling haunting of the imagination

That is a prelude to walking death

Echoes and 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

The ever present caw-caw-cawing of the brazen crows

Across the road, in another century,

When fireworks and the heated glow of household fires welcomed

Tired soldiers home to share the beds of strangers

And still the cries bounce from wall-to-wall

Echoing in these empty rooms.