This poem was written as part of a workshop on Ekphrasis – writing poetry based on an image/artwork. My inspiration for this was the image above (from the Australian War Memorial).

Oh, my boy
My dear, dear boy

This war sent you
so far away from me that
Your last letter,
Posted months ago,
arrived only today.

Mr Baker stopped me on my way
to the shops this morning
He knew how eagerly
I await your letters
and he had one in his bag.

I stood there, shaking, while he searched
through his satchel, overflowing
with holiday greetings.

He presented your letter with a smile.

I thanked him.

I did not have the heart
to tell him he’d just
delivered a letter
from a ghost.

I received a letter
from your friend last month.
He told me how you’d been injured,
how you hadn’t survived

This Last Letter
written a few short days
before you died
is Extraordinary
in its very Ordinariness.

You asked me for socks.

How I know my boy
Your feet were always cold
I had started a pair of socks to send you
Only a few days before
I got the news.

My knitting needles were my weapons.
If I could get those socks on your feet,
I lied to myself,
Nothing could penetrate the shield
of a mother’s love.

I did not knit fast enough.

I could not knit fast enough.