Angela France: The Impossibility of Inventing Absence

Angela France

Angela France lives in Gloucestershire and works for a local youth charity.
She runs a monthly live poetry event in Cheltenham, ‘Buzzwords’ and has
had poems published in a number of poetry journals and anthologies. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Gloucestershire and will be starting a PhD in Autumn ’09. She is an editor for Iota poetry journal and for the ezine The Shit Creek Review. Her second collection, Occupation, is available from Ragged Raven Press: http://www.raggedraven.co.uk/

The Impossibility of Inventing Absence

1

A man stares at his hands,
    drills belief into his palms,
  squints to see daylight
through their centres.
  He only sees edges,
the sun pinking lines
  between his fingers;
tired skin binding his wrists.
He can’t conjure the hole;
  the absence of flesh,
the raw space between bones.

2

  She can see him, can build a picture
from his name, invent a life together,
  a stock of stories to lean on
when she introduces herself as widow.
  She wears his loss next to her skin,
likes how it feels when she’s out,
  the confidence it lends, the glamour.
At night she rests her hand on the other side
  of her bed, turns to face the second pillow;
can’t pretend the emptiness feels any different.

3

A rock has been moved
from my path; its shape marked
by the flat of worm-pocked soil,
edges of clustered moss.