Rain follows my taxi from Manchester Piccadilly
to Didsbury.
My mother will be buried in the storm, black umbrellas
keeping her dry, a stiff navy dress buttoned to the neck.
A Merlion spits water into falling rain.
Her face wistful like a girl in the Corps de Ballet.
I've saved two photos, a speech in Hyde Park
for the suffragettes and a pose marked
Egyptian Camel as she visited the pyramids.
Plunging rain, no relief; half-plugged drains, pelted
zinnias in stained flower boxes, the morning light drawn
with a child's soft chalk.
My empty 3 AM poems. The BOAC bag of clean underwear.
I visit my publisher, the ramshackle offices closed
when I arrive, dark as the Muslim Brotherhood
just taking power this month in Cairo.
Bernard Henrie
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rain-taxi/
