An Honest Trade by David Ralph Lewis

By monochrome mountains, on dulled mornings

worn from overuse, through an empty land

that smells of pine needles, cough medicine

and wet soil, I walk from huddled village

to towns felled by funghi, holding deep

in my ribcage a still glowing star fragment.

On market days, I set up my simple stall

and for a few copper coins, I crack open

my sternum with a chisel, so that others

may warm numbed fingers, might close eyes

and feel their skin as golden for a time,

laugh uninterrupted by constant clouds.

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David Ralph Lewis (www.davidralphlewis.co.uk) is a poet based in Bristol, UK who has been published in Marble Poetry Magazine, Nine Muses Poetry and NeonMagazine. He has two pamphlets, Our Voices in the Chaos published by Selcouth Station and Refraction. He enjoys dancing badly at gigs and attempting to grow vegetables.