When Absence Leaves a Trail
That Was the Week That Was: August 11–17
Some weeks scatter themselves like tiles across a village noticeboard.
This one began with a puzzle, found its way to a dish left empty, pressed hard against the hospice walls, and ended on a train line carrying memory like cargo.
Not Touched
In Not Touched, Maggie walks into a story pieced together one letter at a time. Tiles appear where no one expects them—on bus shelters, hymn boards, biscuit tins—until they spell out the unspoken apology of a man already gone. What remains is not a mystery to be solved, but a trail to be witnessed.
The Dish Lay Empty
In The Dish Lay Empty, a key slips between worlds—sometimes waiting in a dish, sometimes on a pillow, sometimes opening a door that exists only in dreams. What begins as an arrangement becomes an absence, and finally, the quiet weight of something lost but not forgotten.
Chapter Thirteen – Holding On
In Holding On, David bends rules meant to protect his father and pays the cost in sharp words and brittle silence. Yet across the evening—through conflict, memory, and the small grace of shared dinner—something steadies. Not resolution, but recognition: that showing up matters, even when you falter.
Steel on Steel
In Steel on Steel, a month-long rail journey becomes a map of return. Sheffield streets stir childhood memory, Peak District hills unroll like beads on a string, and one night of dancing with an old love reminds him what endures. The poem rides the rhythm of trains—steel on steel—carrying both the weight of years and the lightness of coming home.
This week holds together through absence and return.
Letters that arrive too late.
Keys that vanish when you reach for them.
A father whose strength is measured in moments.
Tracks that hum with what’s been and what’s still to come.
Some weeks scatter themselves like tiles.
This one leaves the words behind—
to be picked up, carried,
and set gently where they belong.