The Night Before
A bed by a motorway, close by hospital
A sheet for cover, diesel-thick air.
An open window, door-slams and fried onions,
Dusk as long-winded as the heat wave.
A truck judders down on its shocks.
From grey rush of tarmac and a scald of light,
A slow headache crawls over my pillow
A low gear chugging in a distant lay-by.
Ken Evans is an Higher Education Marketing Manager living in the Peak District. He has had travel articles published by The Guardian and won prizes in regional arts festivals for his poetry. Ken was most recently published by the Human Rights Consortium in an anthology called In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights, available on Amazon