poppies

• "Three days before Armistice Sunday... individual war graves."
• "Poppies... spasms of red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer"
• "Sellotape bandaged around my hand, I rounded up as many white cat hairs as I could"
• "Steeled the softening of my face. I wanted to graze my nose across the tip of your nose"
• "Gelled blackthorns... All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, slowly melting"
• "...The world overflowing like a treasure chest. A split second and you were away, intoxicated..."
• "Released a song bird from its cage... a single dove flew from the pear tree"
• "My stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less without a winter coat or reinforcements"
• "I leaned against it like a wishbone. The dove pulled freely against the sky... hoping to hear your playground voice"