My picture: Poster on the wall of No 3 Hospital, Xinxiang, China.

How long is lifelong?
Years of tender colours,
taken away in a moment.

Once a life was so flat,
so bitter and cold.
But love and lust
never eluded me.

A year’s gone…
but moments are offered
up in song.
Dredged each day
from toil in the fine dust.

Yet… there are times
away from the crowd, when
the flowers fall fast in the hard rain.
Then I think of you.