By Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon
She sits on the edge of a field of swaying corn,
for the first time since childhood. She lies back
on scratchy grass, shades her eyes with her arm
and squints at doily clouds scudding over blue
sky – clear enough for a pair of sailor’s trousers.
She recalls her fourteenth summer, her first love –
they’d walked miles each day, lain together
in corn meadows, fully-clothed and chaste, damp
with longing, but happy to wait. Those weeks
flew by, then nested in her mind for perpetuity.
If he still lives and saw her now – seventy years
next birthday – would he, once again, string daisies
in a chain to place it round her sagging neck or fix
a dogrose in her snowy hair. Would he still hold
a torch for her, would she be roused to kiss and care.
Ceinwen lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and writes short stories and poetry. She has been widely published in web magazines and in print anthologies. She is a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee. Her first chapbook ‘Cerddi Bach (Little Poems), was published in 2019 by Hedgehog Press. She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator, mainly working with elders and intergenerational groups. She believes everyone’s voice counts.
