Bus stop
Move back a bit.
The rain is driving into the bus shelter.
It is freezing.
pardon
You're too close.
Standing too close. I don't like it.
She does something with her feet.
Learned at ballet class perhaps.
It makes me uncomfortable she says
. i'm sorry,i just,
Too close.
She pulls her canvas shopping trolley around between us.
A small tartan rebuke
i step back off the shrinking dry island of paving
i feel the cold wet spread through my canvas shoes
i didn't mean ..
My Tom would have something to say if he was here.
She hasn't once turned around
Her headscarf barely reaches my chest.
i am not tall.
The bus arrives.
here let me, i say
i try to hold the trolley.
No thank you,my Tom's waiting you know.
She boards the bus.
i don't.