Uncle Danny
In the white panel van you ferried me through summers,
the back filled with tools and the scents of nature.
Head gardener at the hospital, carrying seasons in your pocket,
soil ground into your nails, flowers whispered their secrets.
You were the last to keep the family home
until it asked more than you could give.
We didn’t understand why you moved so far away.
Then you stopped answering the phone.
Police broke the silence: how your mobility had declined,
how you’d overstated the support you had.
Mum’s baby brother laid to rest without a service,
her anger circling, despite her own wish
for a simple, direct to crem goodbye.
If only you, too, had been tended like a garden.
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