Your ironstone village idyll is forever soured
the quaint stone cottages dulled and tainted,
now turn from red gold to rust
decaying slowly as do you.
You, the selfless nurse, now being nursed
a spouse not two-years in the ground, and
left to embrace brief interludes
of pain, tears, grief and making do.
As your cancer slowly masticates
a favourite song coats your lips
like warm poison, a whispered,
‘only half the man I used to be’
And those of us who know you well
concur you’re twice the man
we ever were.
*
© Graham Sherwood 07/2019
grahamrichardsherwood.co.uk 