Angela Williams
Moving On
My spade cleaves the hillock of soil.
Deranged worker ants scramble
across her headstone
their rhythms disrupted, beats broken.
They must move on, build a new colony.
My hands flatten the ground, robe it in grass.
Plant primroses, join with the earth.
Grave dirt under my nails, drawing closer.
Red tractor mud oozes
onto the road. Splatters a minibus
full of itinerant pickers.
Gangmasters run the potato harvest
now no locals will bow low
to dig England’s buried treasure.
Kestrels wheel in the sky
above my old home.
Summer guests have fled.
The kissing gate closes behind me.
I’m already on my way,
walking along a street,
red earth stuck to my soles.