Night Train through Uttar Pradesh

The carriages are full, families lie curled together

sleeping on bunks, blankets covering their heads.

The man in the bunk below me eats his curry from

a paper box – shares it with his wife and child.  

I read with my torch before I sleep. The conductor

wakes us, checking and clipping our tickets. Outside,

we hear calls of the cockerels rousing the villagers,

a wash of peach-gold light spills over the rice fields.

We pass women in coloured saris, pink, gold, green

and sapphire blue – children wave at us, wave again.

I wave back, snap-flashing images with my camera,

a mother turns and glares at me. I delete my photos.

Her look stays inside me. The train trundles on to Delhi

where crowds meet us, push us across the platforms.

Outside the station, I’m swept over by a sea of children,

a sing-song of voices – Take my picture! Take my picture!

Aunt Joyce

She never lost her Englishness living a life

in other lands – insisting on tea in a china cup

and linen napkins for Sunday lunch.

I told her wild tales of strawberries growing

on blossom trees and how English girls

still blushed at the sight of a naked oak.

We’d play Scrabble in the Italian mid-day sun

in made-up Aunt Joyce language – me fumbling

on a slick slack word, she laughing as she

pencilled in her points, never missing a trick.

After she died, I missed her ocean long calls

in the middle of a night, our marmalade talks

of orange peel and cats – a corner of my world,

where we shared our history and our art.

Every Saturday

we waited at the bus-stop, girls in boots, miniskirts,

black-bitty curled-up mascara eyelashes, bee-hive

brushed hair, ticked eyes and white-pink lipstick.

Swanky boys wolf-whistled at us, their arms winging

sideways, hanging on to a metal pole on the jump on,

jump off platform of the bus – the conductress clipped

our tickets from a wind-up machine on a leather strap

round her neck, tinging the bell twice at the Odeon stop.

Inside we queued under a chandelier’s broken shades

handing our money to a man smoking alone in a kiosk,

his yellow stained fingers counting up our change.

In the hall, posters of past movies stared down at us.

The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany’s – we were shown

in to the cinema by an usherette in a frilly hat and apron,

her silver torch poking holes in the dark, quietly and,

with a no ‘hanky-panky’ look in her eye, she pointed

to the back row, our seats with ashtrays on the corners

lit by a shaft of light from a projector beaming down.

We sat in silence admiring the gold velour fringed drapes

on either side of the stage in the red velvet auditorium.

A lion’s head roaring – turning – ready to swallow us up.