Tribute

there was no big
send-off
for you, no
Wembley   Stadium
extravaganza
no fanfares or firewords
no in memoriam
speeches from
famous  admirers    s>.;j;
just a quiet
quality meal
a local hotel
chosen guests
close to you
we  sipped our
wine  and
over  lunch
laughed, even,
I saw you glint in the
corner of my  mother's eye
and  though you
were  not there
some  of us carried
a piece of you
painful
stuck in our
stomachs  like a
fragment  of flint
indigestible
dangerous,  even,

and  now  so
much  air and
years lie
between  us
and  your
name  is
scripted
aesthete in
a calligraphy
book
open  at the date
you  left

I still carry                 
my  flint fragment
black and
hard but
worn  smooth
by bile
embedded
a pebble
I carry you
in my  hear
like a gallstone               
it has worked its
way  inward
over  the years      
                              
how  can 1 cut            
it out without      
cutting myself            
I carry my  lodestone:
deep  where no-one     
can  see it             
nothing can  excise    
even  if I wanted it
removed

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