Purington Paver

By Rob McClure

By an abandoned brick factory,
grass churning with cicadas,
a sun descends blood-orange
over oil drums full of rain
& a fat robin celebrates
its victory of worm.

Strange place to greet Christ,
true, but there He is blood-handed
wading over the oil-drums,
with his spliff and winecup come
to tipple & tousle & tell me
we pave for love with grief.

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Rob McClure's poetry has appeared in Poetry Scotland, Poetry Birmingham, Irish Pages, New Writing Scotland, Anthropocene, and Orbis. He is the author of The Violence (Queen's Ferry Press, 2018) and The Scotsman (Black Springs Press, 2024).