Sometimes Nothing
by Miriam Gamble
She never did it, the girl you were supposed to meet
in pink slippers and dressing gown
in what seemed the dead of night
after the world had gone to bed.
Sodium lights still garnished
the suburban street
with the gladsome hue of territory.
You waited on the curve of the road.
There was nothing in particular to see.
In what claimed to be the dead of night
you stood alone
at the mouth of her development;
sodium light still salad-dressed the street. What
were you waiting for?
You'd always known she wouldn't do it.
You leaned flimsily
against the curve of the road
where the remnants of a wood
you'd never had the name for scythed
on its cluttered stream
through the new developments,
and no bough juddered in the capricious night.
You stood gilded by the sodium light
as fat forms riffled through
your parents' garden;
you fought to keep yourself concealed
from the nothing that was there.
You wanted to go midnight walking. Where
were you going to walk to?
Through the developments, the pepper sniff of woods?
You, scuffing down the road
in you slippers and your wee fleece dressing gown.
You went home again, you climbed the creakless stair.
You dreamt the dreams that were appropriate.
