The piece of short fiction I was writing Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt is a sequel to the story I wrote for my own microfiction challenge (yes, I do them too), so it doesn’t stand alone. This is a poem I wrote yesterday though, that might fit the bill instead.

The air is black between us,

though honeysuckle hangs unseen,

and all the birds, down-soft, song-sweet,

are fluttering with the pinking clouds.

Mist hangs like shrouds, or is it sails?

of that ship we were meant to take

across a corrugated tarmac sea,

nailed down and charted every inch,

to that ‘place for us’ we’ll never see.

I could smell its fullness, rich and sharp,

Of sun-bathed earth as green as life

and apples, running silver rivers-laced,

but you never said, I never knew

what engines, whirring cogs and gears

criss-crossed that paradise of yours.

The air is black, not dusky…