Tim Cresswell

One Side
by Tim Cresswell

It’s true he has no friends to speak of
but he seems happy enough. Doesn’t he?
He’s just shy. That’s what it is.
I’m sick of all these diagnoses.
It used to be normal, didn’t it, before
they made up words.
But really, he’s got his things,
the maps and plans, the fantasy books,
his computer stuff. I know he won’t
answer the phone and never looks a stranger
in the eye but it’s not as though
he’s torturing hamsters. Once he gets going
he’ll talk for hours. God, he’s even
taking driving lessons.
Imagine that—our son—driving!
No—I don’t think he needs to see
someone, it’ll only make it worse.
I’m sure he’s fine. It’s not that
I think it doesn’t matter, it’s just that I’m tired
and we have to sleep.
 

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 1.

Tim CresswellTim Cresswell is a widely published poet in the UK, USA, Canada and Ireland. Poems have appeared in, for instance, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, The Clearing, The Moth, On Site Review and Kudzu House Quarterly. His first collection, Soil, was published in 2013 by Penned in the Margins. His book-length sequence, Fence, appears from the same publisher in October 2015. As a geographer Cresswell is the author of five books including Place, An Introduction (2014) and One the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World (2006).

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