Ideas and inspiration for writing tend to come when I'm out and about, usually going to or coming from work.
I wait
at the bus stop
while the sun
grows hot
on the pavement.
Two growing boys
and
one of their mothers
join me.
The friend
listens to the bubbling
of the son
while the mother reaches
into her bag.
Before her purse
she finds a plastic tube,
pulls it out,
flips the cap,
and squeezes lotion
onto one palm.
With her free hand
she inserts the tube
into the crevice
between arm and breast,
and holds it
tenderly
- like an egg
in an Alsatian’s mouth.
She places her empty palm
onto the lotion in the other
and circles the two.
Then with the heels
of spade-like hands
she turns her son to face
her.
She smooths the lotion
onto the boy’s upturned
face.
He interrupts his words’
flow
while his face is
pushed through the dilating palms.
She feels the warmth of his
skin
as it pushes against her.
He is reborn –
hot, flushed and greasy –
protected from the Sun,
vernix reapplied.
The friend,
still in his listening
silence,
watches
and finds himself
engrossed
by the intimacy of the act.
The mother,
massaging the face between
her palms,
looks at him,
her eyelids slowly curtain
her eyes.
The face in her hands
will forever be a child;
but in the other
she recognises the man
in the boy.
And he sees her -
naked within her clothes-
a joint of adult flesh
basted with sweat.
His own mother
kneeling naked
on his parents’ bed
flashes across his mind -
the small moment of her
breasts,
a dark triangle
hiding beneath the overhang
of her belly.
He pockets his clenched hands
and steps briefly to the
side.
- as if to relax.
A slight knee bend
and his elbow and hip
clumsily touch the
misjudged bus
shelter.
The woman
still looks at him
- Would you like some?
His voice cannot say it
but he shudders his head.
His heart pumps.
Blood rushes to his
earlobes.
His fringe falls into his
eyes
he sniffs and shakes the
head again
to delete it,
his eyes darting hopefully to
the road end.
Here it is.
He breathes.
The bus pulls up
and a comfortable cloud
of busyness
rains onto the group again
as they mount the steps
and push themselves
up the bank of the aisle
to seats either side.
I board.
And from behind them
I watch the mother,
cleansing her hands
on the skin at the back of
her neck,
the friend
looking with constructed
casualness
through the other dusty
window,
while on the seat between
them
the boy –
the child –
bounces.
