Anniversaries
With the old pre-electric telephones
The crackling was louder,
The scraping of cosmic sandpaper more violent.
When your voice came through from Yucatan
It sounded authentic; for months
I hoarded your tiny atmospheric phrases.
I like to believe you hoarded mine
Like the last shilling in the tin.
Now that you come through every day,
And you’re almost ‘in the room’,
I don’t credit one clear breathing word;
After an hour has passed, I remember
Virtually nothing. Unless
They give us that sandpaper back again,
I’ll imagine you spending me in Yucatan
Like the last million in the tin
Psychopomp
I woke to someone vacuuming in the nearby corridor,
That merciless mechanical whine getting nearer & noisier,
Battering the skirting-boards at every turn
In its search for the dust to which we shall we return.
On our deathday it won’t be the whippoorwills of the folk tales
Crowding the window, chorusing for our souls,
Nor banshees or spectres from an ancient tomb –
But down the corridor, in a not too distant room
Someone will switch on a vacuum.
I woke to someone vacuuming in the nearby corridor,
That merciless mechanical whine getting nearer & noisier,
Battering the skirting-boards at every turn
In its search for the dust to which we shall we return.
On our deathday it won’t be the whippoorwills of the folk tales
Crowding the window, chorusing for our souls,
Nor banshees or spectres from an ancient tomb –
But down the corridor, in a not too distant room
Someone will switch on a vacuum.
