Pocket Knife
My father’s eyes
stare at me through the bats
delivering dreams.
Notches rack up
like tally marks
on a tree in a wood
I’ve never been to.
I wake with a pocket knife
in my palm, the blade
bent towards the earth
as if carrying another
man’s sins proved
too much of a burden.
Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with recent work in Acumen, Dreich, Dream Catcher, Dodging the Rain and Canary. He was longlisted for the 2023 Aurora Prize for Writing, shortlisted for the 2023 Ironbridge Poetry Competition and 2023 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and won the 2023 Cathalbui Poetry Competition.