A poem by Robert Selby to mark the launch of his first full collection

I'm delighted to be featuring a poem by Robert Selby today to mark the launch of his first full collection, The Coming-Down Time (Shoestring Press, 2020). I'll be reviewing Selby's book on Rogue Strands in due course, but for the moment a delicious sample is in order.

The power of this poem resides in its use of pronouns. I'm convinced deft manipulation of the blighters is a sign of a good poet, but this piece reaches beyond normal expectations to create an emotional charge that gradually creeps up on the reader. The third person undermines the second, before both of them overwhelm the first, though I'm not going to reveal any more details at this stage. I simply suggest you read it for yourself to discover what I mean about its subtle impact.

N.B. I'm inserting the poem below as a jpeg image because its line lengths don't lend themselves to the format of a blog and I don't want them to be mangled by the limited boundaries of a screen...