It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You are close at hand yet very far away. So long since I have seen you! How to put you on? I hop across the room, like one in pain. I did not bother taking you away with me, and I am not sorry. But today was different. A new chill in the air though on the surface no different from yesterday. I rooted in the drawer. Not having you in my life was a sign of no routine, of busking it, seeing my children, impromptu conversations with friends over wine. Now you are in my life again it is the end of those things, your snug warmth a reminder of the torrents to come. You were missing, and now you are not. You are still an afterthought, when everything else is put on, not yet a reflex. Soon I fear you will be. Today is just the first. The first of many that we shall walk together to work and back and back. I wonder what you have been thinking and dreaming in my absence? Do you not sense it, this change? And how are you, ripped out heart of summer, now that it is autumn?
Published by Anthony Wilson
I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. My most recent books are Deck Shoes (Impress Books, 2019), a book of prose memoir and criticism, and The Afterlife (Worple Press, 2019). In 2023 I will publish The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, with Blue Diode Press. My current research project, with Sue Dymoke from Nottingham Trent University and funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library. View all posts by Anthony Wilson
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Beautiful!
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I adore socks. Thank you for this delightful essay.
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Thanks for this reflection on something we can all relate to!
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