I dream a tree is moving six feet closer to my window, a great heave and skid of spirits encased in bark. before, dipping over the garden, it didn’t seem to be mine, now leaves scuff against pane, branches sneak through gaps, curl and sprout into bedrooms like lost loves. a tumbling wave of breeze crashes in my ears, turns vision green. I don’t know what this means. six feet is a man standing up straight, toes on a coffin’s polished wood, the curve of his skull woven into turf. each day speeds me closer to the moment when I’m in the ground, punched clean by roots like handouts in a student’s file. I won’t think about that now. just stare out of my window, contemplate the tree from a distance, pace out six slow feet where life and death meet. first thing, when I wake.
Will Griffith is a secondary school teacher and poet. He has been published in Reach Poetry and Last Stanza, and has work forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, Amethyst Review, and Blood Moon Rising. In his spare time he enjoys walking by the sea and playing the blues.