He likes cycling across the fell
bicycle clips hugging his trouser legs
always donning his flat cap.
He says, it will soon get o’er,
when you worry yourself silly.
Says, can’t complain,
when you ask how he is.
You watch as he cuts
honey from the frame,
the knife slicing through
honeycomb, then dropped into jam jars
honey dripping down the sides.
He gives you the knife to lick clean.
Honey his cure for every ail.
You wish you’d done more
when the years spent mining took hold,
his laboured breath at the open window.
Remembering that last time,
you took him for a drive, across the fell
down to Deerness, the sky blue, endless.
Rachel Burns
Published in The Fig Tree Issue 15
https://open.substack.com/pub/figtreepoetry/p/the-fig-tree-issue-15
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