and I’ve nowhere else to put it. She was 36 and died four weeks after a cancer diagnosis.
Red
Sometimes you would ask me
If I would write a poem
Just for you
And I would say
It doesn’t work like that Red,
The stubborn words won’t fall unbridled
To the paper
Even if I ask them nicely
Then you died.
And suddenly the words are
Falling unbidden,
Unasked for, uninvited,
Like autumn leaves in chaotic whirlwind murmurations -
It was always your favourite season -
Spiced pumpkin lattes, whipped cream dreams -
The chill of possibility taut on the crisp morning air,
Skies torn open, canvas painted -
Red.
You’d walk for miles along the beach
To find your answers - hoping they might be hidden
Furled like tiny starfish truths underneath the sand -
But there can be no answers now.
And then you’d call me and we would laugh
At how things always and yet never changed
Sometimes then it didn’t feel so hard -
Somehow then it didn’t feel so bad.
For you there are no new mornings,
Lost forever are the autumn days you
Always loved so much
The grainy dew -
The bespoke frost, blades sparkling like diamonds -
In the half light of dawn’s reluctant gaze.
Infinite evenings of clouds stitched hastily to starlit skies
The twilight whispering for the day to end.
The twilight whispered for your day to end.
Somewhere in my mind’s eye
You walk across some far-flung beach
Your body glowing warm in the midday sun
Face upturned -
Shadows long -
Starfish unfurled -
Sorrows cast adrift on the wild ocean -
Making every autumn sunrise -
Making every autumn sunset -
Red.