Marigold

Remember me

at the edge of sunlight

against a wall in Hexham,

after a freak storm

flooded streets,

stranded.

Our shadows are dense

in the photographs you keep.

You leaned in

to taste,

disturbed my roots.

Held in a stone vase,

I’m unquiet

dying to be careless.

Lilies

Your ochres give a loose assurance

of summer – its delayed arrival

and stubborn refusal to take hold.

Smudged colour keeps us all awake,

flushes our evening with mauve

for mourning, beats out news

____________

Maria, from Liverpool is the author of 3 pamphlets. She is the recipient of

The Peggy Poole Award, 2020/1 and a New North Poet Award, 2017/8.

Maria is writer in residence for Mersey Care, and creates and edits the

hand-stitched poetry journal, Coast to Coast to Coast.