Today's poem is by Roger Robinson

Ribs
        For Errol Graham who starved to death when his benefits were cut.

Read this in memory of me, or should I say
in my memory. Let the lines of this poem
be pronounced ribs pushing from inside my skin.

Let each failing organ be a stanza. Look
at the volta of my death, the quickening,
the resonance and argument of my demise.

Let this skeletal body of dried skin be the poem.
My suffering bearing more importance
in my death, than in all the days of my life

My shrunken, shrivelled, starving body becoming potent
like dried mushrooms Light enough to be easily
carried out as dead weight by one man.

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Copyright © 2023 Roger Robinson All rights reserved
from Poetry London
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission