Strontium Story

A thousand years from now they will open my mouth
and my bones will sing the story of my life,

how I was a traveller, a rider of sea and air
a walker of dunes and deserts;

they will take my teeth for analysis and find
strontium, which will show the where and when of me,

will tell the way the sun shone, the richness
of the soil that grew the fruit my mother bought at market.

Each layering isotope, like a tree-ring, marks my growth
reveals the famine and the feast of what I was.

Beth Brooke

Beth Brooke is a retired teacher. She now lives in Dorset, close to the wonderful Jurassic Coast. Her debut collection is due to be published by Hedgehog Press next year.