Issue 1.1 - Alan Summers

dappled light the glint of gun

* * * * *
​
the rain
gathering
whiskey
& tobacco
this cast of ghosts
           
 
(after Arwyn Evans)

* * * * *
​

The Green Lady

​Under the stairs in a small space lies a dog and a boy, and one of them is dying.
 
This is his parents’ house,
and everything is still the 1970s.
 
The boy locks eyes with the dog, and they share a pact, and a few quiet whimpers.
 
A Chinese girl looks down on them, her skin blue-green;
her shoulders gold from the robe she wears.
 
Her hands are folded out of sight
but the boy knows they’re not cold.
 
He could remember this image forever.
 
The boy buries his parents’ last ever dog
in the family home’s garden,
they couldn’t bear to have another one.
 
I cried solid for a week.
 
He wishes his mother, now a widow, would get one more, just one last dog.
 
Now the boy is a man, and one of them is dying again.



                                                                        mother’s sepsis . . .
                                                                        I help the undertakers
                                                                        wrap her away

* * * * *
​