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You knew death would measure regret:
Length, breadth, width.
Even I, these few metres beyond that moment
Cannot recall whether
The window was closed,
The fire was guarded,
The back door locked,
The alarm switched on.
If I had held your last breath
In my mouth, had given it back,
Would you be here now?
Here, folding linen washed clean
Of everything but secrets and sex.
Still here kneading bread,
Dusting flour to be absorbed,
Forgotten floored?
Now, as I shout
You are silent again.
Questions find answers alone:
Like the light that will not turn to green,
Or the shovel that will not lift the clay.
Regret makes each space wider,
Makes mountains vanish from sight,
Love cannot rescue regret.
Debbie Walsh is a recent graduate of the MA Writing Programme at Edge Hill University. She was awarded the Rhiannon Evans Poetry Scholarship in 2011. She lives in Lancashire.
'I am influenced by all modes of writing, by life, by sensory assimilation and by the poetics of form.'