It's Still Life

This poem is best read accompanied by “Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Pärt. Let the music hold the silence between the lines.

The Unspooling: A Thameslink Elegy

The morning began folded into metal wings,
Calder’s mobiles turning the gallery air
into a cantata of pivots—
my ears catching what my eyes
couldn’t hold.

(I listened, a recording, your voice, strong as a poem,
a connection strung between flight and pulse.)

And then the clinic—
cold as a whisper,
my bones humming along
to the cello’s slow saw
through the dark.

If pain has a sound,
it’s this: a single note
held too long
between teeth.

The train home—
my skull, a vase of thorns.
The window’s rain
streaking the world
into a watercolour
of itself.

The day floats
like one of Calder’s mobiles—
slightly tilted,
still spinning,
still catching light
even as it unravels.