Friday Evening

You are on the train crawling across country towards me.
I am in the car driving to a half-way station.
You are switching on the overhead reading-light.
I am switching on the car sidelights.
You are losing yourself in a book.
I am losing myself in a poem.
I know this road like the palm of your hand.
To give up is as desperate as to go on.
You lean your head on the glass, speckling with rain like sperm.
I switch on the wipers.
Dusk deepens.
The station will always be there to meet us,
Unable to go even when the last train is in,
Even when the sun flickers low, a waiting-room fire.   

from The Puberty Tree: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 1992), © D M Thomas 1992, used by permission of the author.

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