Thomas Nicholson
Behind my house, looking up the hill –
and into the past –
I can watch him
or what’s left,
in an iron basket,
dancing a helm wind jig,
shirt tatters fluttering.
I think I can see the ripples of the air
around the gibbet –
his and the man he murdered.
You can’t pass from this world
without leaving a scar at the spot.
The exact spot.
Over cities and centuries
they merge, like midsummer freckles
But it’s quiet where I live
and the membrane between
us and them
is thin and pale,
like the swaying bones of Thomas Nicholson
