Bob Heyman, United Kingdom's National Honour
October 2026
Urban Outing
URBAN OUTING
Goldfish circle round showy plastic weeds,
unseen by residents slumped in armchairs.
Dorothea, confined to a tower,
angry ever after, slow rollator shuffles,
journeying across the floor towards us.
Her carriage awaits. Raoul transfers her,
a congregation of two migrations.
We parole through code-barred glassy airlocks,
toil up traffic choked roads, ascend kerb cliffs,
circle round lumps on decrepit pavements,
and breathe gas-per-fumes honked from snarling cars.
Dorothea has ceased to remember
the pre-war flats where, once upon a time,
she met friends; a young Jewish refugee
who boarded the final children's transport
on the road from Hell to a kinder place.
We cleave a route through dense groups of Ultras
circling round synagogues. Their self-absorption
diminishes our visibility.
I take no prisoners. One man must move
swiftly to avoid the weighty wheelchair.
He intones greetings, perhaps sarcastic.
Dorothea used to comment wryly on men
wearing full-length black coats and tall furry hats,
the garb of olden day Polish nobility.
She does not now see them crossing her path,
just as they do not register her presence.
In a café, Rose shows her mother pictures,
hoping to reconnect her to our world.
She does not respond to her grandchild sextet
nor recall her great-grandchild full football team.
Where she is now, they no longer touch her.
She wants to talk only about going home.
But we dare not engage with this topic,
knowing that we have traded her life for ours.
Desperately struggling to find safety,
Rose tells Dorothea that soon she will be
one-hundred-and-three. She quips back with quick
comic timing, ‘It must be the fresh air’.
She looks pleased when we both laugh at her joke,
a rare spark flashing in a ruined mind.
Score: 82.04 out of 100.
Read the October 2026 National Honours