Eidolon / Adrian
no notion of how you got there,
nor where there is, that wood,
what path led you from it, you
& the other boy – re-membered
unbidden out of nothing –
a limber body rinsed in sunlight,
stood high in the branches
of a sycamore, daring you to follow
though you never could
no swift hand to snatch him
down onto paper in pencil strokes,
smoothed with the fingertip
just where the shadow pools & skin
dips thin at the throat – a sketch
to stay the dissolve, to grip
something of him from change
no recall why after this he vanishes
from view, loses touch with you
& his hold on the world, next heard of
on the grapevine in his twenties,
when he hammers every breakable thing
in his mother’s house & finds himself
at the end of a cord in her wardrobe
only these lines to reconnect the broken,
the sense they must be pulled
through on to the page,
a suture grown over deep
.
Steve Xerri is a former teacher, musician & designer now making pots and writing poetry. Was Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2017, has been published in Acumen, Amaryllis, Atrium, Brittle Star, Cinnamon anthology From Hallows to Harvest, Clear Poetry, Envoi, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Interpreter’s House, The Poetry Shed, Poetry Society Newsletter, Proletarian Poetry, Stride Magazine and Words For The Wild. Another poem forthcoming in Picaroon.
Abegail Morley 
Leave a comment