Eyam- a poem by Eve Chancellor

Eyam


There is a window
            in a church
where fractured daylight
                              streams
through a ring of roses

there is a boy
          handing a tailor
          a sack of cloth
infested with plague-fleas.

On a hill
in a circle
                 a smattering of graves
Alice. Ann. William. Elizabeth.
John. Oner.
All buried
                  within eight days.

On the edge
of a village
                    sits a boundary stone
there to mark the gateway
between life
                      and beyond
six holes
like eyes in a button

watching from purgatory

a place where suffering
will only bring you
                                   suffering
but will maybe
one day
set you
             free



Eyam is a small village in Derbyshire which took important measures during the bubonic plague in the 17th Century

Eve Chancellor is an English Teacher in Manchester. Her poems have been published online and in multiple literary magazines, including: Acropolis Journal, Dream Catcher, Hyacinth Review and Seaside Gothic. Her poem ‘Two Girls on a Greyhound’ was the Ink, Sweat and Tears pick off the month, March 2023. Her short stories are featured on East of the Weband in journals, such as The Ghastling. Twitter: @eve_madelaine