Following an argument,
We went to look for war graves
Among black limbed olive groves,
Spindled in mist and rumours
Of a quiet atrocity.
Franco’s dead have no maps
Only places of unrest,
Lost in the dust of ditches
Attics and moth balled drawers.
A country widowed too young
(Then wedded to the killer).
Between the rasp of fat crows
Winter has many silences,
To which we added our own,
Tramping over the slow thaw,
Hunting for a massacre.
We interrogate the plot
With boots and sticks unearthing
Rusted caps of Cacaolat,
A jam jar of dead bees,
Japanese pornography,
A shrunken red wool mitten,
The wheel hub of a Citroen,
Shuffled bones of carrion,
And a shivering condom,
Limp ghost of love departed
Not long before our own.
Later we make food for hours.
Almodovar is on TV.
Hands redefine their gravity.
Quietly we both agree
Not to speak of it again.
Shortlisted in the 2013 Fish Publishing International Poetry Competition
Mark Fiddes 