Those Last Impossible Inches by Judith Kingston

        Alexander Rabb CC


THOSE LAST IMPOSSIBLE INCHES
In which you only have to start the long walk home because your Dad comes to meet
you in his clapped out Vauxhall Corsa with a warm jumper and a take-out hot
chocolate

Perhaps it will never be easy.
Perhaps we will never face the things we can’t face.
Perhaps we will never quite finish the race.

I have left the last three sips of my tea
and the chorus of that song I can’t place
humming round my head, keeps eluding me.

Perhaps it will always be the case that
after pushing myself up the mudslide of the final hill
I will still and always collapse half a breath away.

I never did send warm socks to Calais.
I never planted the seeds for that Christmas tree.
I’m still flailing with my feet in the clay.

Perhaps there are debts we can never repay.
Perhaps it’s the taking part that counts, as they say.
Perhaps we are dragged those final inches by grace.

Perhaps when all this is over I will be able to say
that I looked back to see he had moved the line for me
and painted victory on my face.

​

Judith Kingston is a Dutch writer living in the UK. Her poems have been published in various online magazines such as Poets Reading the News, Barren Magazine, VampCat Magazine and Fly on the Wall Webzine. Besides writing, she translates, teaches and narrates audiobooks. Follow her on Twitter: @judithkingston and Instagram: @judith_kingston.

---