Amy Acre

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My Friend Dancing With Light

I was getting on a coach and you were nowhere
or maybe you were somewhere
a few more hours
I can’t be sure exactly
when it tipped but most likely it was dark
most likely trees and spirits
spiky dreams nowhere filling up
your mouth you were singing
an unbroken high note
your whole life
dapper nightingale
here to stretch summer and drums
and when it broke
we lay down on the floor as if to offer a trade
we couldn’t get low enough
and we wrote
because to write a thing
is to give it away
the gone of you dried up
an empty basin to give you back
smiling a thin line thumbs up
and decent
the sweetest somewhere
I never got to tell you

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AMY ACRE is a poet and editor, born in London and living in Nottingham. Her debut collection, Mothersong (Bloomsbury, 2023), was named a Book of the Year in The Telegraph and The Financial Times. She runs award-winning indie publisher, Bad Betty Press.