Silent Road

We stared at a puddle in the road
The frozen surface a coffin lid
Not a cloud in the empty sky
It was as if the day had hid
Sapped of colour beneath the branches
Of poplar trees that lined the street
We held hands but thought of other people we never meet

Your irises though green were dim
And dug at me over buried things
While the words we spoke said nothing
Paling into insignificance
A late Victorian red brick school
With a refurbishment underway
Towered above with paper snowflakes
Falling motionless down the glass panes

Your expression seemed laid out for the dead
Thoughts that filled the empty school rooms there
And seemed to gather about us here
In the silent suburban railinged gloom
Your smile a sign of giving up
You stared at the gulls on the chimney pots
Whose menacing stares went back and forth
And jagged movements did not notice us

We pass the school with its new white-boards
And I’m taught that promise is passing by
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
Or to try and reach out and attempt to touch
The shadows that cut and cling to you
Your mouth and the sky and the sea-less gulls
And a frozen puddle in the silent road