Northern Line
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
We are going home on the last tube.
Opposite, another couple sit
I think she’s pregnant
by the way she lowers herself
green knees apart. I press
my knees together. Funny
how they carry it like a man.
We read awkwardly, you
K Dick, me Larkin
but I’m watching her swollen
jacket, black and furry, and
his hands on her thigh.
Larkin, cantankerous, spits
Bitch and sherry, waiting to die,
He watches the curtains.
It suits her. Her skin and hair
are soft, no dye. They are not
married, but she wears five
other rings, and a silver
watch. They are not
much older than us. Will
we remember those early days,
coffee and something, the safety
of serving? Solidarity, and the smell
of burning, a warm break
in the warm morning – the beginning
of Larkin’s own slide?
And will I lower myself like that?
Daisy Parente
Daisy Parente is 26. She lives and works in North London, where she rides a clapped-out bicycle and spends more time thinking about gardening than actually doing it. This is her first published poem; her second will be in SEGUE in September.