The sun on gravestone
highlights history.

An inscription is helpless
in the vacuum of loneliness

with death providing
the full stop to everything.

I reach for the past,
caresses the sculpture

of inadequate words
the dead can’t read.

I bend my head,
my kiss cold on stone,

tears eroding the attempt
of a stiff upper lip.

I take my leave, a prisoner
of words I took with me.

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Widely published over many years in numerous magazines, journals, anthologies and competitions, most recently first prize in the Brian Nisbet poetry award.