AN EMBRACE OF MORNING

Empty Cross

To be correct we 
have straightened
the tree
bound it in symmetry
Knots planed out
Polish
layered seals wood from
touch; renders
grain
as ornament    quite
safe to bear upon
the breast

Threads
(for Martha Richardson)

The hospital’s coldness is a touch so familiar only
my body responds   It needs no attention   In
the distance your voice names the colours of pain

and broken bodies disappear leaving beds neat; without
stain   The seats in the waiting area are bared
and figures suited in white have fled the dictatorship

of the sick to become a still surround
in which your form stands
raised on what vision will not allow

to be seen   And yet I see - but am not there so 
I must find the path through a maze of screens
lest you be gone believing I did not care

enough   The back of crowd breached  (Scene
change)   I hover in the first circle and would be
the perfect audience but I am determined

on recognition   Never veering from the line
you smile welcome ...
I wake from life into death.

Morning demands like a hungry cat
I wince at the lack of originality and hunch
back to nestle below the covers of memory

Words neither yours nor mine had power
to mend a broken body; could not still
the bustling  rhythm we use to spin cocoons

around death   You wrote to me of life
and dreams; the raw material from which
you formed lines that cut images into minds

I hold your orphaned words
knots in my thought’s weave 
We will go out together 

Faith caught: I rise acquiescent 
I am parted from you yet this clay
holds - your fingerprints

Kathryn Hamann