Letters

Summer remains a stranger in your

grandfather’s village; ruptured yolk like an axe bleeding stickily. We

exchanged the years for pocket watches; linen for clay, as a blanket

for his sodden bones. The ground is breathing –

And isn’t the air a little thicker now

that spring has come and gone? This same air that catches in our

lungs of lead as thunder recalls aircraft rumble?

– As if we have wound up

our hearts like clockwork all these years, garnered endearments:

‘how are you?’ and ‘hope you’re well’.

If only you could

hear those words now – alone in the trembling street, remembering

your last hello: damp, heavy, a dusty echo peeling from a tunnel wall.