Autumn questions
with no immediate answers

gradually denuding
to reveal skeletal branches
penning their script against pale skies,
writing of the sharp tongued winter
lying ahead

Earlier in the morning
I’d read the movements of a stalwart blackbird
flicking dead leaves on my concrete driveway,
gleaning for grubs

Later, as I unloaded the weekly food shop,
substitute, as it was, for fun,
I heard an imperious cry,

scrolling up, the fork-tailed red kites circled
in a sunshine that denied pathetic fallacy

and the screech they made meant nothing

Sometimes hearts
break in specific ways,
we will apply bandages
but the scars will form vivid,
worn by us all as memory
that the best burn bright
but brief

I don’t want to open,
not emails carefully written
or texts with clipped care and sad emojis
or uncommon knocks at the door

I don’t want to open
because they’ll be about you,

not from you

the radioactive throb of their concern
will tear at my shut eyes,
try to pry at arms tight across my chest
and draw words from the thin line of my lips

I don’t want to open,
though I know it’s the start
and ‘the best thing to do’

it will trigger the tumble,
the stumbles, the snot-nosed howls,
crushed throat rage as I claw and wrestle,

but it will slowly begin to lessen
and I’ll lose the living you

I don’t want to open

bracken memory,
rock and boot mud,
air above with voiced winds,
water flowing, thoughtless,
pure
and fire, embers, ashes
you are to me

I had a ghost, too polite to scare,
haunting took the form of kind notes,
a fridge periodically restocked,
socks paired and put in drawers

Eschewing rattled chains and wails
it chose to put the radio on,
only ever easy listening,
Sunday mourning

No ectoplasm,
no unexplained temperature drops
no arcanely spelled clues
to the tragedy of a restless soul

In time, it exorcised itself
and my communion was lost,
with a tidied kitchen,
all brass fittings shone

And I was left with everyday fear

The rain had stayed in the grass,
and as I walked my shoes got sodden

Then, I didn’t feel the chill weight
as each wet step took me towards you,
the cold, dead-leaf breeze
still thrilling

A coal glow of anticipation,
the drug-draw of your jumpered arms,
endless cups of tea in the earlying dark
watching the frost’s slow creep