Afterimage – Steve Xerri

Afterimage

Molecular shuttling took hold
in the boy who would seek out
cuckoo pints in the beechwood
and shuffled him gone. In place
of him you, his supple bones
grown brittle under your skin,
his voice broken into your deeper.

As you sweep through the city’s
mesh of streets – conducting
meetings by phone in the back of cabs,
snatching lunch, dealing in futures –
he suddenly flexes in you, at the sight
of expensive lilies in great beauty
dying under florist’s cellophane.

Steve Xerri : former teacher, musician & designer now engaged in poetry & pottery. Was Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2017. Published in Acumen, Amaryllis, Brittle Star, Clear Poetry, Envoi, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Interpreter’s House, The Poetry Shed, Poetry Society Newsletter (Members’ Poems) and Stride Magazine.