Peter Branson

E equals M C squared
(For June and Drew)

Woman in black comes to your bed again,
all skin and bone astride your old line-prop.
Down worm-holed tumbling stairs, she’s melted air,
sheets strewn across the turf like nursery rime.
You think to find your mother helping out;
it’s what she does. Yet nobody is there:
no father ruminating at his bench,
fag-bound; his father, of the handlebar
moustache, waistcoat and rolled-up newspaper,
off to the outside lav; first grandmother,
white as the washing line, down third year eyes;
the others, dog-ear blurs on photographs;
no friends, those two who leave before their span,
he, far too big for everyday and she,
so full of humankind; no characters;
no fallen heroes, footballers, outlaws;
no freedom fighters, songsters, writers, poets;
the sky dark matter, empty, fathomless.

Peter Branson is a creative writing tutor who has been writing poetry seriously for five years and has been published in some of the most prestigious specialist poetry journals in Britain, e.g., Ambit, Acumen, Envoi, Other Poetry, The Interpreter’s House, Fire and Pulsar. He has won awards in many annual international open competitions, including Envoi, The Petra Kenny and The Writing Magazine.