Leaning Against Time – SuAndi’s poetry collection published by Carcanet Press

LEANING AGAINST TIME

I see myself waiting

on this street corner of all that is England

Like a prostitute tired of the business

Yet waiting still

for that special lover.

Blind –

to the big pockets of small change

and no paper for creativity –

fat wallets with no lips to shape a conversation

My eyes turned down to the dirt of my situation

and see there reflected

the passing in all shades

of this

Black and white reality.

Those too lean to lay a hip next to

Those stomachs-wider than desire

could stretch a leg over

I hear their mutterings

the cursing of

‘who she think she is’

‘too ugly for my taste’

‘too worn’

‘too wide’

‘too choosy for her own good’

I hear

but like a deaf mute,

I remain as still as any public art commission

a subject of debate for some possibly,

possibly a waste of space,

life, for others

and therefore of absolutely no interest

On bad days

when chills whip past

this place I have taken for my own

I tell myself

this waiting will be the death of me

And the full glow of my living

will simply fade into that

darker shade of blood red dead

Sometimes I shuffle impatient

trying to hustle up an early arrival

but my welcoming dance

is mauled by the stubbornness of my leg(s)

My body takes on the bruising

of this waiting

as I am jostled by incidents out of my control

But I remain steadfast

And if you pass by

you will see me

A sentinel

A believer

Keeping my faith

Leaning Against Time

Leaning Against Time © SuAndi / Carcanet Press. Reproduced with permission.