Things

Just like that cardigan you wore,
it shaped itself to your very being.
How is it that an old thing can carry
so much of a person?
The handle, worn smooth as stone,
somehow warm where your strong hands
held fast.
This spade, the remnants
of the dirt you lifted,
holds something of you.

I say your name quietly;
in dark purple blooms
not named by any botanist.

The theme is …

This is where I duck out;
the moon’s too big for just one person.

Give me a tiny moonstone to write about,
or better still, a moon shaped stone
that fits upon my palm.

Like the stone I took away from the shore
the day I gave an urn of ashes to the sea:
a trade that, like the tide,
keeps returning you to me.




Neil Elder’s full collection The Space Between Us won the Cinnamon Press Debut Prize, and his Codes of Conduct won their pamphlet prize. This year he has a pamphlet Like This appearing with 4Words Press. He occasionally blogs at https://neilelderpoetry.wordpress.com/