Steaming into Home

Two thousand five, a cold Manchester morning,

she parks her van where the buses come and go.

He says you can stay,

but here's my one condition — bring me back a cocoa,

steam rising off the snow.

Twenty years of engines,

twenty years of laughing,

matching leather jackets, matching crooked grins,

finishing each other's sentences at the counter,

strangers swore we looked like blood and kin.

All those years you were parked right beside me,

close as the steam curling off that cup — I couldn't see

you clear till the fog came up.

All those years you were sat right beside me,

I kept my promise,

I found you. (I found you) Then a phone call,

his voice cracked and broken,

saying goodbye to a foster boy again.

He said, I was adopted,

never knew my mother.

She said, I've got a brother

— his name was Stuart then.

He said, my name was Stuart Proudlove.

She said, that's my maiden name,

that's the same.

Same town, same hospital,

same March morning, twenty-fourth of sixty-six — we

cried and said his name.

Six years old, I told my mother — I'll find him,

wait and see.

She searched for twenty winters,

never once gave up on me.

When Susan held me at the door she said,

you kept your word

— this is the lottery

I never thought I'd win.

All those years you were parked right beside me,

brother and sister hiding in plain sight

— now

the fog's all lifted,

and the airport's bright.

All those years you were sat right beside me,

I kept my promise,

I found you,

I found you,

I found you.

Still bring me a cocoa,

hot, the way you always do — I found you.