TERMINUS

TERMINUS

TERMINUS

I may come back I’m afraid
as a faded floral curtain
hanging at the window of a flat
overlooking a city station
yard, the clangour and grind
of shunting, corrugated iron
fences and engine sheds.
The curtain will stay closed
always. Behind it in the room
lit by a single off-centre
ceiling light – a double bed,
twisted sheets, an implacable succession
of bodies, sagging bellies, armpits,
anuses, audible pain
the curtain will have to keep facing.