Routes

Ross WilsonContemplative

I remember ticking no religion in my first job application form. ‘Yir a Protestant,’ he told me. ‘No, Ah’m no,’ I told him.

At his funeral a Catholic neighbour said, year after year, he signed Christmas cards comrade. Things aren’t always as they appear.

Escape routes connected the pits in case of disaster. That’s another thing he told me. Years later I see disused routes

under the fields and streets between men, and imagine lifelines buried in fists blooming into palms.

(First published in The Glasgow Review of Books.)

Ross Wilson

Learn by heart: tap a gap

I remember ticking no

in my first job form.

Keep going on the web or in the app.