Humming

I heard the man

on the next door table

hum a tuneless song,

quiet and lamentable.

We’d both been left

back to back alone,

guarding our patch

until the coffee came.

There was no tune

it seemed to say

no need to speak to me

while I fill this

awkward gap with

inharmonious uncertainty.

It resembled a waiting

hum – like the hum

you hear

in the dentist’s

waiting room.

And I heard it once

in the early

hours of a prison night,

waiting for someone

to stab me.

John H Davies

9th January 2011