Afterwords

i.   In Attendance

From the boundary of cypresses,
the cassock-wings of a hang-glider
minister closer and closer.

On the chapel path, a fresh droplet
of black oil from the hearse
has put out and lost a human form,
only minutes since delivery
of the diminutive, beribboned box.

Beyond the hedges
round each raked and numbered bed,
the town, the world, resumption,
stand back for blotch-red grief,
a couple’s stumbling timelessness.

Nervously, sympathy gets ready,
to be useful, with useless arms.

ii.   A Small Do

Engine capacities and
a couple’s performing dog
keep the conversation going;

so does someone’s child
at her elbow,
with a noisy toy;

or another,
with its absence, still.
More Camembert?

Yes, please,
to plug the holes
in her pretence,

until, on the drive home,
the wintry sun
breaks through the mist,

and a perfect Turner sky,
with its therapeutic banality,
graces a silence she can bear.

.