The Last Tram

A poem from my Greenwich Exchange book, Come Close and Listen:

The Last Tram

The last tram is white; here it comes now,
slipping silently along its tracks of steel.
See the passengers. Why don't they wave?
Their eyes all look towards the driver. He's

in control, knows when to ring the bell.
The back of the tram looks like the front:
so will it stop, return to the depot?
No, it just glides along its tracks, further,

further down the road, leaving me to stand
and wait. I watch it go; I watch
with my late father. He grips my hand,
at least for a while. Then he too is gone.

The last tram finally leaves the road
and skims across the bright green grass.
The conductor laughs; the passengers smile;
I enjoy the view from the windows at last.


(Poem first published in Orbis,
December 1999.)


THE LAST TRAM, EDINBURGH, 1956:

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