It’s bound to be a lonelier wait now.

Wrinkling the shores
of midday monochrome
the high street tide reveals
missed calls and meals,
puddles of purpose
in the middle of an hourglass
where moon-fed songs of passers-by
erode the hum of recollection.

Look, they say,
if we’re not loud enough,
she’ll lurk behind our ears,
and steal our stories like the beads
of some translucent rosary.

Don’t they see
we are all stranded here,
selling fables to the wind
and chewing on the bones of laughter.