Poem: The Isolation Hospital: Bowl Barrow

Bowl Barrow

I sit at the foot
of your tomb and watch
as fog descends

extends its cold fingertips across the crisp-moss hills
becomes a sudden sandstorm gathering speed and bite:
pursues a red kite, striking white under its wings.

Gorse drop
barbed spines
Carline thistles
shake dead heads

walkers are forced to battle

through fine                  fistfuls of vapour

emerging

with chalk manes                restrained

travelling land they don’t

understand.

Their feet resist, create
rifts. Tug and trudge
disturb mud, stumble
over your grave, labelled
a bunker
a ditch
a crater.

I reach for my scarf, pull
it tight around my chest
feel the chill of damp grass
pull my l i m b s apart.

I am the bones beneath the barrow

left for none to see.