{"id":63,"date":"2012-01-25T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T18:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=63"},"modified":"2012-01-25T18:11:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T18:11:00","slug":"robin-houghtons-night-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/robin-houghtons-night-visitors\/","title":{"rendered":"Robin Houghton's 'Night Visitors'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Night Visitors<\/span>

We come when the moon looks away,<\/span>
when cats crouch unblinking under cars<\/span>
and we know they won\u2019t talk, or care,<\/span>
when people are watching TV, as the street<\/span>
claims a moment of peace. You might hear<\/span>
a noise outside, something closing, a cough.<\/span>

Ours is a private ambulance, half parked<\/span>
in your blindspot, on yellow lines, we are<\/span>
too busy to be noticed, in our black suits<\/span>
and soft soled shoes. First the knock, then in<\/span>
with our bag, upstairs through the murmuring <\/span>
white faces, offers of tea. We come for Joan.<\/span>

Everyone\u2019s glad she was here, at least<\/span>
in her own bed, even dried out like this,<\/span>
a broken bird. Our work is gentle, discreet.<\/span>
Just when you look away, we leave.<\/span>
Don\u2019t trouble yourself about Joan, or us –<\/span>
we\u2019ll do the same for you, one day.<\/span>




*Robin Houghton<\/span> has had work in The Rialto, The North, Iota, Agenda<\/span> and other magazines. She is a a copywriter and internet marketer and is based in Lewes, East Sussex. Her poetry & photo blog is at <\/span><\/font>http:\/\/eggboxrobin.posterous.com\/<\/span><\/font><\/a><\/span><\/a>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Night VisitorsWe come when the moon looks away,when cats crouch unblinking under carsand we know they won\u2019t talk, or care,when people are watching TV, as the streetclaims a moment of peace. You might heara noise outside, something closing, a cough.Ours is a private ambulance, half parkedin your blindspot, on yellow lines, we aretoo busy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}