Timing Poem by Thomas Rickarby

There’s an old man sat in a waiting room
with a pain that he’s not had before.
The sky outside is darkening
at a pace that goes unnoticed.

A girl stares up at the breadth of the sky.
Bored, she turns away her head.
Here to meet a boy from some time past,
who has not turned up, and won’t.

Goodbye, she says, and then makes her way home.
Whilst an old man dies in a hospital.
And a doctor is struck dumb.
And a wife is asleep near a silent phone.