by Ceinwen EC Haydon |
At the bottom of your bottom kitchen drawer
a dusty, green-marbled fountain pen with twisted nib
lies tangled in elastic bands dropped on your garden path
by the postie, when he still delivered mail. He always stopped
to pass the time of day, a welcome break for you both, though
you were left to clear up after he’d gone. Not for the first time,
a messy man relied on you. Your kind words, and copperplate hand
learnt at school, flew to all four corners of the earth. You stayed put,
rooted to your neighbourhood, hours enriched by many pen friends
and their airmailed stories from afar. Quink ink, blue-black, dried up
in its bottle, sits on your kitchen table of gnarled pine, its wood stained
deep with blotches shaped like countries on a map. Your empty rooms
anticipate fresh occupancy, now you’ve left to go a-wandering, at last.
Image Credit: ©Jenny Hallbrown
MEET THE POET:
Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: 'Cerddi Bach' [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. She is a Pushcart Prize (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts, even when their stories are hard to hear.