Words on Your Anniversary

By Rosalind Hodgkiss

And so, my love, my Alice sweet,

More than a year of loss

The pain, so bleak and so complete

A pain - I cannot gloss

it further. Or plaster the cracks -

Of my fractured heart -

Or Polyfilla the chasm -

Of this infinite - Hurt

And so, my love, my Alice sweet,

A restless, crowded year,

Events that jostled, arrhythmic

Or bradycardic beat

A speeding jerk-

A slowing pulse -

Heart-stopped -

Hurt -

And I have run and walked for you,

Sowed seeds and planted trees

For you. And I have wept for you

And I have ached for you

My weary legs and splinted heart

My swollen hip, my done in core

My amputated worn-out words -

In halls and gigs, to camera crews

For you

What is the story that I can tell?

That losing you has left a shell?

Or should I say, ‘I’m doing well’?

Is that the line I’m going to sell?

Or that I’m living in a hell?

Encore

You haunt me

Your photos on my wall

Material and digital

The stream of my dreams

Reaching -

For you.

And so, my love, my Alice sweet

More than a year has gone

The pain, so bleak and so complete

(And yet I must go on)