The leaves fall faster now
and the spaces between branches
grow into their winter emptiness
reaching for a brooding sky.

We drive in silence,
companionable and anxious
and I think of the rubber distance
curling and uncurling between us:
18 years of practice flexes for today.

It is busy at your college
British gas have exhumed the bowels of the street
and in the rain we're stumbling over pipes exposed,
watching kettles, pillows, teddy bears
make their uncertain journeys
towards the small rooms,
where aged dinginess is venerable;
where a hundred new selves wait -
are almost glimpsed -
in eyes brimming with impatience
and bravado as parents leave.

Coming home, the space grows vast
about your sitting places
empty now as winter trees
and I must learn from them
to wait for brief returns.