It’s nearly the end of the month and what a journey it has been. And that is today’s prompt with Christina Thatcher making a welcome return to Poetry Non-Stop for NaPoWriMo.
Write a poem which includes a bus or train journey. You may want to consider what is passing by outside the window, the sounds or conversations happening inside or even the memories that this journey invokes.
Interweaving
On the bus from Pontypridd to Cardiff, a
woman braids her hair, an apple’s breadth
from the rattling window where ffordd and
farmland meet. How strange to see this here,
after so many years: my mother’s mane in
this faraway place—her flyaways breaking
loose, her split end static darting faster than
spooked sheep. How strange this electric
urge to release my own locks from their stale
ponytail and mimic these braids:
the same weave as these horses,
the same soft as these women.
Christina Thatcher
First published in A470 anthology (Arachne Press, 2022)
Christina Thatcher is a Creative Writing Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She keeps busy off campus as Poetry Editor for The Cardiff Review, a tutor for The Poetry School, a member of the Literature Wales Management Board and as a freelance workshop facilitator across the UK. Her poetry and short stories have featured in over 50 publications including Ambit, Magma, North American Review, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine and more. She has published two poetry collections with Parthian Books: More than you were (2017) and How to Carry Fire (2020). To learn more about Christina’s work please visit her website: christinathatcher.com or follow her on Twitter @writetoempower.
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