Trevor Hewett: The patchwork woman

Mid-afternoon, in fading Autumn light:
lank-haired, green-shoed, in a flesh-coloured plastic mac,
red skirt and gingham shirt, the patchwork woman
drifts past me to the crossing on my right.
A skirl of brakes attracts my eye. She stands
half way across the road, stock-still. Her hands
hang at her sides, her face is calm but her eyes
betray her. There, in a navy blue sedan,
throttle revving, sits a modern man:
mid-thirties, wearing matching suit and tie
and haircut. Angry, staring, hurried, late,
he grips the wheel and mutters liquid hate.
The car strains like the pole car on the grid
but still she stands and, with a frightened smile,
mouths “Thank you” and then shuffles on her way,
not seeing what her gratitude just did -
for he has melted and is smiling too.
His eyes pursue her as she wanders through
the shoppers in her pink, distinctive mac;
never looking back.

Trevor Hewett: Sceptic

It is comforting, of course, after a death
to receive the skilled words of a priest. This one
shines with the serenity of clear purpose
and of certainty.
Something composes him, elevates him to
levels of knowing that I should not question.
He draws upon deep reservoirs of wisdom
that must, surely, be
beyond his experience, at twenty-six.
I’ll grant that he’s a decent, virtuous man,
but his sure, complete and perfect certainty
is what troubles me.
His rejection of all possibilities,
except the truth he holds, is illogical
and, in other circumstances, might be dubbed
pathological.

Trevor Hewett: Shirts

He rang from twenty years ago,
my friend from childhood, teenage days
and for an hour we talked
and giggled like two boys;
grown men with seven kids between us,
made helpless by the warmth of memory
stirring laughter from fine detail
both of us could add.
I heard his Midlands accent fade
and mine, he said, reverted to
our country burr and phrases, words,
we both had set aside till now;
the mutual lost language that
we both could clearly understand
and comfortably wear,
like old shirts.

Trevor Hewett: Hope

Two of them, sharing a green park bench,
their heads bent, talking and eating chips;
one gorging, one pecking like a small bird
and dabbing her lips
with a tissue. One, seventy, glasses, white hair,
and one, in a Blackburn shirt, is eight:
the future talking to the past
about love and hate
and discussing, earnestly, right and wrong
and setting themselves the occasional poser,

like a couple of Oxbridge philosophy dons
debating Spinoza.
This is hope: one recalling how things might have been,
and one seeing how they could be -
both of them seeing what still might be sought
and neither seeing why not.