Eunice

With her latest roses happily encumbered

    Tunbridge Wells Central takes her from the night,

Sweet second bloomings frost has faintly umbered

    And some double dahlias waxy red and white.

Shut again till April stands her little hutment

    Peeping over daisies Michaelmas and mauve,

Lock’d is the Elsan in its brick abutment

    Lock’d the little pantry, dead the little stove.

Keys with Mr. Groombridge, but nobody will take them

    To her lonely cottage by the lonely oak,

Potatoes in the garden but nobody to bake them,

    Fungus in the living room and water in the coke.

I can see her waiting on this chilly Sunday

    For the five forty (twenty minutes late),

One of many hundreds to dread the coming Monday

    To fight with influenza and battle with her weight.

Tweed coat and skirt that with such anticipation

    On a merry spring time a friend had trimm’d with fur,

Now the friend is married and, oh desolation,

    Married to the man who might have married her.

High in Onslow Gardens where the soot flakes settle

    An empty flat is waiting her struggle up the stair

And when she puts the wireless on, the heater and the kettle

    It’s cream and green and cosy, but home is never there.

Home’s here in Kent and how many morning coffees

    And hurried little lunch hours of planning will be spent

Through the busy months of typing in the office

    Until the days are warm enough to take her back to Kent.