Home for Christmas

They left the hospital 
while it was being done -
the cold air
took them by the arm;
streets, cars, people,
floated, swayed past.

I’ll do it, he said;
I haven’t lost one yet,
he added, but I will -
scalpel-sharp words
across thousands of miles
of traffic-noise,

their daughter’s screams 
in their ears -

open-line
they couldn’t switch off
as they moonwalked around
the craters in Oxford Street, 
with their deceptively firm
footholds of Christmas cheer.

.