Cracking A Rib

Cracking a rib, turning in bed,
was a sign
you were right to paint the room red.

Weighing a kingfisher's loss in your palm
is keeping you calm;
you will come to no harm
if we recite the 23rd psalm.

Etching your name into glass
is a link with the past
and with the future
you weren't the first, I won't be the last.

The bees are leaving their dead behind
in the spaces of the roof.
How clever it now seems,
to build and abandon;
to leave honey seeping into the fabric
of someone else's house.

James L. Orwin

Kingston-upon-Hull

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