Headless Cross Poem by Martin Ward

Headless Cross by Martin Ward
(Friargate, Derby)

Lepers fingers
delved into the recess
where once a head attached.

Coins, cast aside,
just as their customers
would be, unless they rest
in vinegar, for purveyors
who dare
or maybe
care enough.

What love
or tragic tales
these stones
could tell:
one final meal
for a parent
or child?

Stumps, digits
grasping to leave
essential payment.
Stumbling remnants
of complete humans:
feared by those
who live
beyond
the boundary stone.

Their shadows,
in medieval
magnetic tape
recorded stone.

Only cars
and city buses
blast or sound
commuting reveries
along this ancient portway,
traversed
by them
and us.