Catherine Ormell - 24 Hour Cars

Dialled out around the minicab station
drivers are sleeping. Newspapers rolled
into bolsters, they’ve locked themselves in,
as a cold morning proceeds around them.

These engines murmur with turn-over
although the dashboard bric-a-brac's inert;
St Casimir watches, as if from a mantelpiece
over limbs folded, as if in an armchair.

Here the driver's moustache plummets,
his crescent eyelashes flicker
conceding every flake of snow.
Later, he and the others will be out stretching,

their eyes weary, shaking last wisps of heat
out at the hips of their chinos.
The only thing given away; their lack, their doubt.
This they know to be worthless.

Catherine Ormell has been widely published in magazines, including the London Magazine and the Rialto. Her poem Delicacy was published in the recent anthology Best British Poetry 2011, Campaign Desk was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best poem in 2009, and her poem And then you made me feel… was published in the Arvon International Poetry Competition Anthology 2010. She has read at the Troubadour and has spoken at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter. Read more here.

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