This windblown doily, once a bud,
slept, wound in cotyledons – spread
its tablecloth across the sun
to harvest light then die but in
the dying, found new ways to paint the sky
and after flushing red, it let
the quick-unpick of time
rescind the stitches in the weave
to leave this lattice-scaffold.
When I’m old and
afterwards,
I hope my bones will look this good.

Norman Hadley is a poet living in Garstang, UK. You can read more of his poems on his website.