The Photograph by Michael Wyndham

In memory of Hannah Jones

Costumed in the corny
range of fancy dress,
your friends flaunt
deliberately daft grins.
In the heart of the crowd
you appear as the glamour
of an expelled angel,
dumped here for resisting
a system impenetrable to the others.
On back of the photo is
written: my 21st – 22/4/97
I had forgotten the childishness
of your handwriting,
always in red.
Your eyes fix to elsewhere,
as if to face the camera
would expose a buried sorrow;
as if knowing this photograph
would set the start of your end.

Michael Wyndham is a regular performer on the London poetry circuit, and has been most recently published by International Times, Blue of Noon, The Recusant and South Bank Poetry.