Fran Reader has lived in Suffolk since 1990. After retirement she reinvented herself by gaining an MA in Creative Writing with Poetry with the Open University. Since Autumn 2017 she has been Editor of Suffolk Poetry Society’s Twelve Rivers magazine and was Chair of the Society from 2022-2024.
The Watchers won Second Prize in Suffolk Poetry Society’s George Crabbe Competition in 2025.
The Watchers
Some impulse drew us to the pauper’s graves.
Our worn-out shoes scuffed over uneven ground
to stare at the simple stones of Potter’s field.
We held our breath watching the soil
rise upwards – tentative at first – then frantic
like the fallout from wartime shells.
Hands appeared: farm-work gnarled,
wash-house rough – a carpenter’s without a thumb –
a child’s with nails bitten to the quick.
Next came their heads: lice-shaved, pox scarred,
scragged-back bun, sunken-nosed syphilitic,
pickle-faced alcoholic, teeth missing –
teeth as rotten as year-old potatoes,
mouths that spat soil and flints
before they could breathe in our polluted air.
Inch by inch their hands gained purchase –
struggled – pushed – until some stood.
A hunchback helped a boy with rheumy eyes,
an amputee bent to lift a woman dressed in black,
cradling a child. There were handshakes, hugs.
And then they turned as one
like long grass bending before the wind.
We closed our eyes unable to bear
their looks of understanding.
Fran Reader