Thomas Whyley Poet Free verse

The last knock

Lucky, the lattice of friendships thrown across time’s long curve—
shared laughter still ringing in the hollows we carved,
wild tales we hoard like pocketed stones, warm from the hand.
The first hello thins to a ghost now, faint as chalk on pavement after rain.

Two boys then, wide-eyed as new calves, blinking at the world’s glare.
I trace the years backward: from that pair to a ragged chorus of five,
each addition a door flung open, a shout across gardens.
We still miss the small, hesitant rap at the frame—
timid as a held breath, hopeful as first light.

There on the step, heart a trapped bird against ribs,
“Can he come out? Tell him the ball—” the plea half-swallowed,
then vanished indoors at the call of plates, the steam of stew,
gulped down fast, then out again, spilling into dusk like water from cupped hands.

Let us not surrender the feral children we carried inside us—
kings of cracked kerbs and sun-dappled alleys, our realm decreed
by nothing grander than speed and the next game.
It will not circle back. That knowledge settles like frost
on the morning the knock never answered,
and the door stayed shut, sealing the kingdom we lost.

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