‘He had spent the last decade in Manchester […] as Warden of the fractious Fellows of the Collegiate.
It was virtual exile.’ BENJAMIN WOOLLEY, The Queen’s Conjuror: The Life and Magic of Dr Dee



No mobile contact
and Orpheus on the radio

Coming here, as we turned
where it said Elkstones

a pickup hurtled round
the bend and almost –

•

At Roach End, a commemorative plaque
on the stile notes the name of a doctor
‘taken’ while walking the moors he loved.

He was the age that I am now who walk,
breathe heather, pick, taste, feel
the stain of bilberry, and hope for a signal.

•

The Mermaid Pool no bird
will settle on: the girl
who was drowned there
...