Water Marks

I needed to tell you how I wondered
once as I sat on a train
and watched a woman trying not to cry,
if feelings were some bad joke
of a miserable god, crushing us
as we might walks on ants
because he can.

I wanted to sit next to her, the stranger
and hand her the tissues that she struggled to find
but I stuck to my seat
and kept her from crying, so that it ate her up inside
and made her face so like a woman who'd throw herself
from the bridge.

I tried to tell you my feelings
but they stuck to my throat
and got tied to my chest with neatly knotted string.

Tears of laughter stung in your eyes like formic acid
water marks leave tiny holes,
through which the ants of doubt crawl
because they can.

I saw a line of ants crawl in the street lamp
as I climbed the railings,
a strange man hurried by
embarrassed to ask if I was ok
just as I couldn't tell you what was wrong
so that it ate me up inside
and made my face so like the woman not crying on the train.

^

Biography

Al Cubbin is a new writer from shrewsbury in shropshire. she started writing about a year ago at the writers senter Ty Newydd in Wales. she has since had work published in an anthology by poetry in print. her infulences include Benjamin Zaphiria and Ted Hughes.