marker ribbons of
unfinished books;
pantry of
half-filled cereal packets;
freezer of sliced bread,
each bleached face quite blank;
marmalade jar,
a few rinds still hidden, intact,
preserved in an amber resin;
a lost age
distilled
at the exact point
you left the world.
re-order your
cutlery drawer,
bring it back in line.
for you craved symmetry,
a line meeting a line,
rug edge against a skirting board,
so neat and purposeful,
the orderliness of ruthless logic –
young girl fresh in from grammar school
where they taught girls in lines,
by rote and by rule.
there are numerous clocks,
of course,
marking the steady rhythm of
those lengthy, sunset hours –
defiling and defying
the chaos of loss,
which I thought would
forever follow me about
like a pet mongrel …
… but that has passed now –
shock and awe
giving way to direction,
instruction,
otherworldly intuition.
one is everywhere and nowhere,
you laugh,
whatever you imagine it to be, it is exactly that
and I suspect you’ve
come to rehearse
your latest role:
playful,
mischievous,
partial,
part whole.
About the Author
Paul Taylor-McCartney is a doctoral researcher with Leicester University, following a part-time PhD in Creative Writing. His interests include dystopian studies, children’s literature and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a range of notable UK and international publications including Aesthetica, The Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature, Education in Practice (National Association of Writers in Education), Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine and Dyst: A literary Journal. He lives and works in Cornwall, (UK).
Grief Dialogues Blog
April 14, 2021 | 6:07 pm
[…] general, and then also to talk about the particular poems that we’ve published on our site, The Unfinished and The […]