Proximity
At night we hear him.
Behind the wall
behind our headboard
our neighbour
is trying to clear his lungs.
Sometimes he calls for his wife.
We lie awake,
silent and inert.
I recall, as a child,
not daring to move,
hearing my grandfather
calling my mother’s name
over and over,
having fallen in his room
on the way for a pee.
I would stare at the ceiling
wishing she would wake,
willing her to hear.
The street has been folded up
and put away for the night.
Beyond, specks of orange light seem to move.
Each is a light on a road
I’ll never walk,
by a house I’ll never see,
where a grandfather
falls or cannot clear his lungs.
Perhaps a curtain twitches
like an eyelid, and someone looks back
at a speck of orange light.
Perhaps one day they will watch
as a light flickers
and goes out.
James R Kilner’s first collection of poems, Frequencies of Light, is out now. He is a former newspaper journalist and holds a PhD from the University of Leeds. Originally from Yorkshire, he now lives on Tyneside. Please visit www.jameskilnerwriter.wordpress.com