She told me
my hips could carve ham,
a girl I loved
dead early on a Sunday morning,
a car in a suburban chance roll
over the edge of Hailes Street.
Langy knows we still blame him.
His life of laying bricks
the string line’s quiver
a darting mouse,
the memory of water in hay
fleeting scent of flax.
He’s mixed only cordial
these foundation decades,
head too small for the mullet
drooping Frank Zappa grey.
Doesn’t look a soul in the eyes,
mortar can’t fill deep fissure.
First published in Academy of the Heart and Mind March 2018
Unstill Mosaics the Book of Love, Loss, and Longing 2019
James Walton Poetry 