He's going home on the Fifteen,
trying to think in A' level German
but the words get stuck
on the back of his throat.

There are times, when the sun
shines just right on the waste ground,
that his fingers still itch
for the rattle of matches, the scrape of a lighter,
when he thinks through his skin
of great black plumes of smoke
from abandoned tyres.

But this is the summer of rain,
and in any case, that was years ago.
He thinks he may get off at a different stop,
walk through warm rain to her house,
arrive at the leaf litter of her front door
his hair dripping in her smile.

But she's heading towards him,
on the Fifteen going the other way,
she said to her mum she'd be back for five
but she thinks, instead, she might get off at his stop,
cram her failed umbrella into a bin
with its spokes like bat bones sticking through skin
and walk through the rain to his house,
arrive with her jeans soaked up to her knees
like sails flapping after a heavy sea.

The sky towers grey over the High School playing fields,
over the trees beyond Ridgeway,
if their need to see each other is equally strong,
they won't.