Sylvia
outside
in the park
the primroses
lie buried
sealed in ice
their blue moth-wing petals
gripped
in crystal-glass
frozen
a thick muffled laying
numbs the square
and seals the door
to its frame
How you lay under the heavy stench
of anaesthetic,
floating yourself free
from your savage god.
Downstairs
you’d neatly folden your kittens,
putting them from harm’s way,
sops ready
for the frozen white air of the morning
and the call that never came.
poppy red figures
burn
into the frozen
landscape
trudging home
hunched
over the snow
clouded breath
punctuating
the heavy
chilled air
Who is that figure,
apparelled in black,
at the back of the church?
Who is that who observes the rites and committals?
Who, cleft-footed,
merges with the tombstones
and looks on so dispassionately
as they process
from the church,
accounts in hands,
torn pages in pockets.
They bound you hand and foot
and dragged you down
over the landscape
of grey blasted gravestones.
Then laid you down,
renamed,
reclaimed,
sea-shells covering your eyes
and cold clay stopping your mouth.