She Breathes

Written for Paul Brookes' ekphrastic challenge - one poem a day in April 2021. 

The art work for this day are by Jane Cornwell, "Barmston looking from Fraisethorpe" by John Law, and "Distances" by Kerfe Roig 

 

She Breathes

 

deeply through the mask,
fixes her visor one more time;

another day, another thankless task

for unknown lives laid on the line

and in her hands. 

 

She pulls

on another pair of soulless gloves

and closes eyes long drained of tears

for all the hurt and absent love

that will scar so many future years

and recalls the sands

as she awakes
on cliffs above the curving coast

and tastes the ocean in her mind

where ten thousand swirling ghosts

float with her, endlessly entwined

on a fine-spun strand

She returns

to flourescence, bustling noise,

as seascapes smear and snap the thread,

and vows to fight all that destroys

her memory of the gasping dead

of this blighted land.

Tim Fellows 2021