Fortune

I love slipping from the bed to the silence of the kitchen
in the nearly-dark of winter mornings, sitting at the table
with a teacup in my hands – always the same one,
an old chip opposite the handle – and watching skies:
rosy dapples fading over Cowkins or today’s
something-and-nothing of a lit edge beyond Helks,
but mostly greys, these slowly lifting shades of grey.
 
You come in, flip the switch, floods of yellow light.
I love this too, your turning the page on the calendar
and reading the day’s poem aloud – Read it again,
that bit about fortune and earthly things –
and the talk after. I love them both: the silence
and your voice reading; the yellow brightness
and the greys out there thrown suddenly to purple.
 
Then there is more tea and more talk and the earthly things
have assumed their daylight raiment and though at times
it still comes to mind, I have not used the word tomorrow.
 

Jane Routh

in collection, The Gift of Boats, 2010, Smith/Doorstop,
ISBN 978-1-906613-22-8