WINCHESTER
A city distanced by green rags of trees.
The remains of Eden. We had departed
through the Saxon settlement: work finished,
the place no longer ours: one layer
of the city stretching, its spires and towers,
multi-storey, the levels of occupation.
When picking fruit, this bone and pot,
you built yesterdays, our bright tomorrows.
We were forced to leave those stereotyped
Romans, Saxons, Normans; their energy
a forest, broken into fragments: vague
rumours we found, a vanishing country.
We meet in pubs, unearth remains — voices,
conversations heard beneath the ground: names
scraped in paint at the station: shards
of friendship. People must keep moving,
precious and lost, these artefacts of feeling.
Their sympathies, phone numbers, unused.
