Frank

“My husband was called Frank,”
she announces,
and her words hang in the moment like icicles,
stunned by the sound of his name.
 
We try to plumb her memory further
but Frank is spirited away,
frozen out by bolder ghosts,
Mum and Dad,
sister Jennie
and brother Billy back from the War.



* Sally Long is a teacher and a distance learning postgraduate Creative Writing student at Newcastle University.