re POEM 28

Deansgate Platform

Sipping tepid coffee, Amante

and I trample over footbridge, descend stone stairway,

and rest black bike against platform bench; hard,

uninviting...

unlike the hint of his Jean Paul Gaultier

perfume tickling my cold nostrils; warm, familiar.

Thoughts interrupted:

by a woman in her sixties pacing

with a pinched ‘I’ve just missed a train’

expression; her short booted strides

clunk concrete. Her bright pink coat

and ash-grey layered cut gives me chuckle,

Growing old gracefully? I suppose. Just as I am; snagged

in sequined net of romance on Deansgate platform.

Catherine Mark