Anthony

By R. M. Francis

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Saint Anthony ushers us
through morning mists
into lustre, set against pale stone Worcester.
He beckons us up creaking stairs
away from the lethe - up
to second story windows
easing into thirteenth century ledges
to spy Benedictine spectres,
stoic, refined, sowing. Toil’s unbroken
rhizomes call, like Evelyn’s church toll called -
Order. Spanning centuries. Order.

Anthony, who sought things that were lost
in Pinfold state, claims two boys
lost in ivy-drenched gardens,
picking at Petty Spurge for petri dishes,
In dérive with rows of Jesuits’ Bark, Bishop’s Weed.
Anthony aids penicillin boys
to stress covens of fungus.
Order. Spanning centuries. Order.

We possess nothing certainly except the past.

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R. M. Francis is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton. He's the author of two novels, Bella and The Wrenna, published with Wild Pressed Books, and a poetry collection, Subsidence, with Smokestack Books. In 2019 he was the inaugural David Bradshaw Writer in Residence at the University of Oxford and in 2020 was Poet in Residence for The Black Country Geological Society. In 2023 Poe Girl Publishing produced his collection of horror stories, Ameles / Currents of Unmindfulness. His academic research focuses on place-identity in the Black Country and has been published in a number of edited collections; he co-edited the book, Smell, Memory and Literature in the Black Country (Palgrave McMillan) with Professor Sebastian Groes.

Francis' other work on Foreshadow:
Man of Sorrows (Poetry, October 2024)
Prayerfully (Poetry, October 2024)