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Working: Volume 2, Number 1 - Issue 5 Spring 2023

Sepulchral​

After Bernard Pierre Wolff
 
Rain on benches in gardens of remembrance
reflects small portions of sky.
 
A chimney in the distance, belching out blackness
as if part of some regime.
 
Give me stars as casual gifts.
I fear a plateau: no hill to climb.
 
Place me on a precipice.
Cut me down for lamentation.
 
Who’s the angel? Her arm draped over her brow
& now fallen on marble.
 
Trees quiver gran mal seizures.
No-one offers stark witness:
 
a weight of words too heavy to lift.
No-one wants hearts anymore
 
or knows anything of myth.
In a corner a columbarium calls.
 
Arches like ventricles I’ll hide behind.
Kneeling on my catafalque
 
she’ll let her tears escape their walls.

PATRICK WRIGHT
has a poetry collection, Full Sight Of Her, published by Eyewear Publishing (2020). He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University.

Copyright © 2023 Empyrean Literary Magazine, L.L.C.
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