Going Home – Judith Wozniak
Her bus wheezes up the hill past Pisgah Chapel
where her mother played the organ each Sunday.
Sooty terraced houses lean together like bad teeth.
She sees Trefor the butcher closing for the day,
setting out sluiced trays with a fresh ruff of paper,
Elias Funerals with their display of dusty flowers.
On the corner outside the Co-op, Howard Marks,
down from Oxford, smokes rollups with bad boys
from the Comp, turning heads with his long hair.
Children spill from The Fish Plaice in Moriah Street
clutching Friday night bags of scraps and chips,
licking greasy fingers slid out from mittens.
Once they pass Langford’s Dairy the driver slows
to drop her off, between stops, at the Top Cross.
She remembers teaching him at Marlas Infants.
She skirts the puddles in the lane to her cottage,
unpacks her basket; salty cockles, laverbread
from Bridgend market. Treats for her daughter
home from London for the weekend.
There’s time to heat the bakestone for Welsh cakes
before Willy Pentre’s delivers fresh eggs and…
Did you have a good snooze Gwen? A girl
in a plastic apron is kneeling by her chair
rubbing her arm. She keeps her eyes closed.
Gwen is not her name, she’s Gwyneth Dilys
and they have put her in the wrong clothes.
Her daughter will be coming soon to take her home.
Judith Wozniak