We Look To the Pure Line I
A mother’s breast-feeding her three-year-old son
On the Metro
I’m standing, holding on
Swaying to the movement
Peripherally aware of a young woman taking off her jacket
One yard to my left
And to my right
The breast-feeding mother
First one breast, then a rest
His saturated head lolling
Then the other breast
An oldish mother
Perhaps forty-five
Lines round her eyes
Care worn, we say
The price of ever-giving kindness
Soft and pale
Shades of brown
Heart held
The train driver
Brakes more sharply than necessary
And I imagine him
Enjoying the thought of his passengers jerking
Recovering their balance
Jerking again
And then remembering
His wife
Suckling their infant son
Somewhere deep in the train
Behind him
Safe
We Look To the Pure Line II
Another day, another Metro journey
Returning from a Remembrance Day Mass
Four of us men
Dark suits and ties
Poppies in lapels.
When a woman
A mother
Thin pinched
Gets on with her six year old a daughter
And a baby at her shoulder
And a bottle for the baby
She instructs her daughter in begging
After a preparatory litany for us
Her benefactors
That none of us can understand
She stands in front of us
Her hand a curled claw
She stares at us
We look straight ahead or at the ground
Baby’s sucking on the teat of the bottle
The little girl unpractised unpolished
Twisting the throwaway plastic beaker in her hand
For a moment I see it from her point of view
Or is it only from my own six year old self’s view
We’re coming home on the bus
Coming home from visiting family
On the top deck
I always wanted to travel on the top deck
The bus swaying through the dark
There’s a drunk
Shouting or singing
Dad says something to him
Perhaps it’s ‘shut up’
The drunk mumbles a response
Half-hidden I have to decode what’s going on
And what are our chances of survival.