The Shine Journal

Still Life With Flowers

by

Peter Branson

For Elizabeth Constance



Day of your funeral
was rainbow grey.
Though you have gone
it hasn’t stalled the rain.

Christmas: no wassail song,
nil chance to thrive,
to toast the apple man
in constant rhyme.

Chromosome 22:
the doctor spelt it out;
“Dire quality of life,
twelve months at best.”

I signed the paper, stilled
your faint footprint,
then bore you blitzed
with love, dumb as a stone;
baneful inheritance
conceived too late.

Lukewarm, I hold
you like a photograph.
We googled, knew
deep down the risk we took.

That cold churchyard;
next door a whistle blew.
The school cried foul,
skipped beats of perfect time:
“My mother said
I never should… ”.

Your coffin seemed so small,
the hole bite-size;
no carrying at all.

Bio: PETER BRANSON lives in Rode Heath, a village in South Cheshire. A former teacher and lecturer, he now organises writing workshops. Until recently he was Writer-in-residence for “All Write” run by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries. He has had work published, or accepted for publication, by many mainstream poetry journals, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Magma, The London Magazine, Iota, 14, Fire, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Nottingham, Pulsar, Red Ink and Other Poetry. He has had success in several competitions including a first prize in The Envoi International, a second place in The Writing Magazine Open and highly-commendeds in The Petra Kenney and The Speakeasy. His first collection, “The Accidental Tourist”, was published locally by The Potteries Writers’ Workshop in May 2008.

Motivation: Funeral of a stillborn baby who was terminated as genetically damaged