Man of Sorrows

By R. M. Francis

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Naked,
punctured five times:
Hands, feet, side – crimsoned raw.
He who is willing to suffer,
stripped,

staring
across strata
across time, across seed
he who is willing to suffer,
seeking.

Grace filled
in my gaze back,
a quiet clicking sound
of beads slipping between fingers.
Surveyed.

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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.