Plastic and steel, discarded rubbish
in the corner of my mother’s garden.
The apple tree long gone, the fence
now a wall. Tired rose bushes
prick through time. In the book
I am reading, a story that was once
true, women are forced to walk away
from their husbands, who return
to a broken reactor and radiation,
are made to bury a city whole
before families are informed
that the men have been buried too.
Unknown waves of finance, fashion,
desire and dreams settle as dust.
We turn out faces to the sun,
confused, trusting it is only light.
© Rupert M Loydell
Illustration Nick Victor