Letters

Summer remains a stranger in your grandfather’s village; ruptured yolk like an axe bleeding stickily. We exchanged the years for pocket watches; linen for clay, as a blanket for his sodden bones. The ground is breathing – And isn’t the air a little thicker now that spring has come and gone? This same air that catches in our lungs of lead as thunder recalls aircraft rumble? – As if we have wound up our hearts like clockwork all these years, garnered endearments: ‘how are you?’ and ‘hope you’re well’. If only you could hear those words now – alone in the trembling street, remembering your last hello: damp, heavy, a dusty echo peeling from a tunnel wall.