October 2026

poetry

Return Ticket

by Simon Haworth


Along with how it beads and runs down the French doors

that open out onto the courts,

along with Friday evening’s monsoon conditions

when the streets flooded

and all the bars’ outside tables emptied,

along with its rushing off the awning of one store

to ruin the vendor’s supply of final editions,

there is the heavy shower,


the one that was forecast to fall and didn’t

making good the return ticket I’d bought

for Burton Road, waiting there for the last tram to arrive,

two girls in floral dresses on the seats further up

delighted by a passing white cat, their night out

and the ways in which they might accessorize.


simon-haworth
Simon Haworth

Simon Haworth is a poet based in Manchester where he works as a tutor and lecturer. He received a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester. His poems and critical writing have previously appeared in various magazines and journals in the UK and Ireland.

1968 - 2026

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