Please consider this a note of apology.
We didn’t know that you were the last.
That’s why we didn’t finish it properly,
leaving in a flurry of possessions divided,
lives in transit to other places, keys yoked
back through the lion mouthed letter box.
You weren’t even there, not present,
a frame filled with the otherworld, ghosting
between walls, not ready to hatch and take
in the heavy air. I tried planting things
to bring you back, potatoes, and tomatoes,
chrysanthemums to bless the door with incense.
I thought I could bring you in through conjuring,
circles, shaping letters, fingertip to glass;
but I know now that it is impossible to transform
base elements without understanding alchemy’s tricks.
Ali Jones is a teacher, music lover, and mother of three. Her work has appeared in Proletarian Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Snakeskin Poetry, Atrium, Mother’s Milk Books, Breastfeeding Matters, Green Parent magazine and The Guardian. Her pamphlets Heartwood and Omega are forthcoming with Indigo Dreams Publishing in 2018.
Lonesome October Lit 