Early Train by Jonathan Davidson

Leaving the house in half-dark, I am going
without goodbye, pulling the front door shut

with a muffled clunk. During the night,
at two and then at three o’clock, the four

and then the six year old had clambered up
into our narrow bed. We’d all slept sound

in the same moonlight from the street lamp
marooned across the bay from our harbour,

and the sea of leaves that turned in the trees
was a fierce squall that filled our dreaming.

As the night went out, scouring temporary
channels in the sand, we would, one by one,

wake up. I was the first, and before I left
to cycle to the station, I took a photo

of the three of them, in the five-thirty light,
to remember the lie of their bodies becalmed,

their faces and voices, their words and replies
washed up on the further shore, to remember
what it was we became when we lived together.

From: http://www.poetrybusiness.co.uk/jonathan-davidson

Date: 2011

By: Jonathan Davidson (1964- )

Tags: 2011, early train, jonathan davidson, leaving the house in half-dark i am going, poetry