The Poppy Man

Every year
there’s a ring
at the bell –
ten o’clock
in the morning
on a Sunday...
round about
the beginning
of November.

‘Poppy, Madam?’
he asks...I fetch
my purse. ‘Thanks,
for your generosity.
Here...grab a handful,’
he says, with a smile.

I tell him the widow
next door, died last June.
‘I know,’ he tells me,
‘And further down
in the village,
old Ted’s gone too.’

His hands, puffed up
with bad arthritis,
as he walks to the gate –
waves ‘Goodbye’.
I tell him, ‘See you
next year,’ to which,
he always replies.
‘No chance...
this’ll be my last.’

The gate squeaks
on its hinges,
to and fro
behind him
in the wind.
A hymn
to the passing
of time,
and the fallen –
then, and now.