You paid your debt your to the Great Universal,
Ticking the box to say you no longer wished to be a representative,
And you walked out, in a patent leather, eagerly anticipated,
Excellent value for you shoe, through the front door this time,
Carrying your mother’s packed away sadness,
In a matching pair of brand new suitcases for every occasion,
Full of qualifications to be somewhere else.

Then you slipped in to an empty seat on an empty bus,
Like a popped in pear-drop, from a shared quarter,
Passed between mother and daughter,
Sat on the sofa, staring at the telly,
Yelling bad jokes at the soaps,
Her stroking your hair
And hoping.

Nadia Drews is a Poetry on the Picketline regular, whose old mum lives on the Roman Road in London.