Bright Snow

Light is bright outside Peterborough station, high

above a fey half-moon leads my eye up to air:

inside, we face each other – chatter differently

and this cafe bubbles, burns, declares

‘the snow fell as big as footballs’, ice

and hubbub lay a thick carpet, nobody reads

because snowfall centres talking. Minutes pass

and we don’t know if there’ll be a train to Leeds;

‘snow in our drive’, ‘skidding cars’, vroom-vroom.

Outside, sun and moon still burn. How

isolated each face is,

connected by breath, steaming coffee, talk of home;

exiled by flakes, by white stuff and brought into now

by a billion little changes. Longing for our villages.