73 All-Night bus

Reading:

All-Night bus

Sitting up to breathe instead of choking under sheets. Common cold.
Fever extends strange dimensions to the bodies of the old. 
Mine feels like a senseless hulk, an Easter Island statue shrunk
To the size of my Eames chair, clutching a soothing drink. 

In silence (hearing aids are by my bed) I lean
To watch a world on wheels glide past across The Green. 
Glowing beams from cars slip by in fours: two headlights
Plus reflections on the rainy asphalt move in synchrony.
Who are these people? Comers-home from some long-dead party?
Goers-early much more likely, off to start the shift when they’re on nights.

And then the all-night bus comes to a stop. A solitary figure on the top,
Outlined against a fluorescent brightness, gazes out at urban desolation. 
He turns his face in my direction and for a second I had the sensation 
That he’d noticed me, lit-up by streetlight, in my first floor window. 
And for that instant I had a wish that he would make some gesture
To acknowledge my existence. I’d shrug back in mutual cognisance, 
A whisper which might cross that wall of dark that stood between us 
Before his temporary universe rolled on towards the terminus. 

You could see this as a simple Edward Hopper night-time scene.
Me looking at him. Him looking at me. Each of us not knowing. 
What better metaphor for anomie or symbol for what might have been?
But it was more than mere Big City loneliness. What haunted as I pondered 
Where that unknown rider might be going, was childhood fear of failure.
I could have been that stranger on the top deck passing by. 
‘Study. Don’t shirk! And pass your General Schools. Only fools 
And horses work! You don’t want to end up like poor Uncle Dai.’ 
To earn his bread he cleaned the Tube trains overnight at Acton Depot.
But the lights go green, the bus moves off and out of sight. I cough
To clear congested lungs and try once more to get to sleep upon my pillow.