Kind Stranger
The old girl I am now
comforts the young woman
I was then
a veined hand
placed lightly
on a trembling hand;
the young one
is on her way home
with stories she will never
be able to tell her mum
or even herself, not
in words, only
in flashbacks,
wrong turns in the pit
of her stomach,
inexplicable tears.
Now she’s in the vortex
of a panic attack
on a train, somewhere
in the Midlands. Is this train
out of control? The old girl
listens, considers,
as if that could be true.
No, I think we’re all right.
Alex lives in London and Montalcino. Her pamphlet Other Blackbirds was published by Cinnamon Press, 2016 and her collection White Roads by Paekakariki Press, 2018. Her poems have appeared quite widely in magazines and anthologies in the UK and Italy.
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