seeking Sairey Gamp

seeking Sairey Gamp

while enduring the damp embrace 

of the infection  (the century 

still smelling of its neglected piss, 

its mouth crusted with dried oats)

a heavy limb, a grey limb, a twisted

and bare limb - the disarticulated, boney

remains of anticipation, was ripped

loose by a coarse wind (obnoxiously 

screaming itself over rooftops) and

landed in my slumbering garden.

the stew was left to boil too long

and what joy may have been gained

in turnip, cabbage and ham bone

was lost to the intrusive nature 

of smoke and burn; the cupboards bare,

i suffered disappointment, not wanting 

to venture the late evening streets

(the rhythm of shoes on pavement:

a heart no longer beating)

the bleak spread of silent fear

shaped us, all, as the bird men;

covered in the woollen cloaks

of isolation, with sharp beaks and

hollow eyes, but without 

the companionship of cart draggers

chanting ‘bring out your dead’;

the dead already out (alone), refugees

in the undiscovered country.

when spring comes, (if spring comes)

i’ll dig a hole beside the irises

and erect that empty arm of winter

as a token to the rats scratching

beneath the floorboards of want,

and i’ll nail the last letter from

the mortgage lender, as an epitaph

for the stew, the wind and night.

i’ll walk, headlong, into the coming tide,

seeking Sairey Gamp, who 

nursed us in and will nurse us out

(with a laugh.)