In Gedling Churchyard, cyclamen and snow drops fill plots
decade by decade, plastic flowers bloom, in and out of season.
I am sitting on Mark’s bench, close to the cricketer’s grave,
thinking about love that stays the distance,
trying to send a text back to my sister, who is ill again,
this time in Kenya She says she hears a preacher speaking
clear as though he’s with her in her room and that is all I know.
Here, it is quiet, just traffic sounds, the muffled clang of workmen’s tools.
I want to wrap her in a duvet, make her cups of tea. Bring her back.
But when she’s well enough to travel, she’ll go home to Tanzania,
to be woken in the mornings by the Imam’s call to prayer
Above me, Gedling spire rises straight and slender as a needle
and I know that from a distance it seems swollen, out of kilter
and that might be how I see my sister. Close by, there’s a holly
suffocating in the loving grip of yew. Buddleia grows by itself
on the cricketer’s grave. I tell her only that I love her.
I am in Gedling Churchyard. My sister is in Kenya.
© Rosie Garner
|
