Above St Pancras Station
A stop on the journey from Margate to Cheltenham
 


In the café high above the station,
we are the only customers.
The sky is so blue through the glass roof.
The supports are shining, arching low.

He spends £8 on single-estate coffees,
wants to spoil me.

He puts his hand over mine, looks away.
There’s something he has to tell me.

The grey metal girders are vast.
The roof could crumple, shatter.

The glass lift is like a cage of ice.
I cross the concourse
through thousands of people,
rushing, looking straight ahead.

At Paddington, I search for his face,
remember the herons in Hyde Park;
the lunches at ‘our’ Italian restaurant;
London at Christmas, the skaters, the lights.

Judith van Dijkhuizen

If you have any thoughts on this poem, Judith van Dijkhuizen  would be pleased to hear them.