on the way to queensway station, 7am

I once knew roses that grew in back yards.
I’d wait for them and most years they’d show up.
When they did, I was grateful, if not inordinately.
I thought we’d grow old together, somehow, the roses
And I, in our back yards. Duplicate that course of
Nature, inherit a thoughtless rhythm. My roses –
Although they were never mine, they belonged to no-one –
Came back to haunt this morning, cascading over
City walls, crying for gravity, flexing dormant
Memory muscles of shared seasons, long-forgotten.


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