Please give me your heart to hold: winning poems from the 2019 Winchester poetry prize

HERON

When you left he came.

On water and air, at a distance

still and silent, alone

telling me bit by bit how it would be –

the hurt like water rippling – different every day

but the same shapes and colour

in the blue flow of me to you.

He raises his head high, lifting to fly

wings wide open. I watch his reflection

him there, me here, and you always, skin close.

Some days I can almost touch you.