Pointing

The blocks of ironstone
bound by rigid mortar
flake away

like some dry mud cracking
in a shallow hollow
once a pool

or honey coloured cells
in a comb of pointing
congealing.


A mix far too strong to
take the stone’s expansion
and fall out

slapped in to free a man
from the tedium of
repointing,

the whole point of pointing
to take the punishment
forgotten.


Inside, with the same care,
the man places people
in a vice

insisting that the words
should be stronger than the
lives they frame

while the words’ own Word waits
to take the strain of our
distortions.