Larkin Rings

Larkin Rings

One day, I will die.

And when I die, scrape out my chest cavity,

And take me home to Scartho.

Fill it with northern soil and push into where

My heart was a seed

From the Bowthorpe Tree.

And as roots grow and wrap around my bones and

Commit me to the earth, and

As my muscles decay, and

As my blood is washed away

I will die once more, but be born again.

I will become Dead Man’s Tree

For the children at Springfield School

Who will harvest me for sixers.

And one day two young lovers will carve in me

A second heart,

Which they will later turn their heads away from as they pass.

And through tunnels of yellow

Old men with thinning hair and coffee stained shirts will walk up to me

Daily, like clockwork,

Until one day they don’t.

And I will die once more, but be born again.