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Gareth\u2019s Wake<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The toot of your horn as you drove past fell silent<\/p>\n in the shunt and crush,<\/p>\n the hand that waved, a useless shield. My cup cracked<\/p>\n with the news, pulsed dark coffee. Your parents<\/p>\n wanted you home one last time, to touch your hand, look out<\/p>\n and see you walking in the fields.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We ate and drank and remembered; the only<\/p>\n thing missing, the crown of the day, was you.<\/p>\n The summer sun buried itself behind a hill.<\/p>\n A car spilled out your English Cousins<\/p>\n who would have been here earlier, but<\/p>\n <\/p>\n they had turned up some other greened-in-the-middle road <\/em><\/p>\n joined the higgledy-piggle of cars in a rush to condole <\/em><\/p>\n didn\u2019t recognise anyone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 it had been a long time\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n clucked vague sympathy with tea\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 went to pay their respects\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n backed out. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gareth, we laughed until we cried<\/p>\n at some old man lying in your coffin<\/p>\n and then cried, knew how much<\/p>\n you\u2019d have loved it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nikki Robson<\/strong> holds an MLitt in Writing Practice and Study and writes life poetry. She has been published in several anthologies. Her work observes life and often finds a warm and witty side to otherwise bleak situations. From Northern Ireland, she now lives in Angus with her husband and children. As well as writing poetry, Nikki enjoys tutoring and creative community involvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gareth\u2019s Wake The toot of your horn as you drove past fell silent in the shunt and crush, the hand that waved, a useless shield. My cup cracked with the news, pulsed dark coffee. Your parents wanted you home one last time, to touch your hand, look out and see you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7382"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7385,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7382\/revisions\/7385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}