Of All the Extraordinary Gothic Places
they settled you in this wild necropolis.
Angels bruised with lichen
and frantic ironwork fastening down
the decades.
I have come to find your corner
below soaring cedars hinting
at their under-blue side with arms wide,
to steady a toddler, handle a drunk.
I have not found crowds.
I have not heard a chorus
of men muscling up and over
to tell how, and when
they touched your bright,
arcing life with a tangent of their own
and I’ve seen not a single petal
upon your headstone.
The bulbs which had rioted
around you have recoiled-
they are fortifying.
Still, saints and sentinels rise from ivy
in earnest ambush, marking out
your plain stencilled grave by being
so very opposite. Yours is a cool cake
of mint. I should take a bite.
Jo Young is from York and is a PhD student on the University of Glasgow’s Creative Writing programme. Her poetry has won prizes and been published in anthologies and magazines including Rialto and The Scores. She is currently poet-in-residence at the National Army Museum, London. She was joint-winner of the 2017 IS&T Pamphlet Commission Competition.