Station
The old man’s riding a mobility scooter decorated
with lucky horseshoes and flapping Welsh dragon flags.
He runs it right up to the platform edge and then backs,
beeping, and turns to just bend the orange plastic protection
round a pit where an operative in high-viz is up to his chest.
The old man’s smoking. He stretches over the barrier
and taps fag-ash onto the shoulder of the man in high-viz
who smiles nicely and the old man winks the smile to me.
I’m waiting with two nuns. From the way Biro marks
hang round their pockets and the tired white of the material,
I guess their habits are now substantially polyester.
The chatty one is going for a check up.
She confesses to a pacemaker and two metal knees.
Doctors these days, she says, they do miracles.
Someone will fill in the pit.
There will be a train to Cardiff.