John Hawkhead

Soft Moon

The first death we knew was not an elderly grandparent but a boy hit by a cricket ball on the soft pulse of his temple. He had sunk to his knees as if searching for something lost in a cool mown lawn.

Then a slow procession through the school gates – a family in black, on a detour from disbelief, come to lay hands on their only son.

to mislay the moon
here among border grasses
the coroner’s tread