death comes in a painting of two pebbles

I bury you.

The old boxes with the small things

Can wait in the silence of the ocean floor.

I was wrong about you.

You, the extended U of a tanker,

With its dull thudding motor carrying a heavy load –

Thick dark oil, the excreta of a crowded ancient Earth.

They might use it to burn books again, or kites,

and you would never notice.

Death comes in a painting of two pebbles.                      10

Billowing grey curtains akin to sails of warships

Bring news of the wind.

                                             –Why did it let the rain drop? –

You tasked yourself to paint the world with a pair of scissors,

And now blink at the canvas.

“She ticks all the boxes”, he said.

In one of them are your glasses with my cut-out lining.

Covered by limpets, clams and shellfish,

There, under the tar sands,

Ophelia’s blankets.                                                                         20

Raindrops slide down the windowpane past the subject.

He calls me a noise he had not noticed.

Sitting on the edge of the bed with its indifferent sheets

He puts on one shoe,

Then the next.

                                                           -How dare the thunder clap? –

Dumb bell jar head without focus!

I try to remember that time moves forward.

But thoughts are like tides,

Which carry froth and seaweed on their breath.                                30

Now other ships come to dredge the sea floor for coral,

  –The night sky inverted –

Raking-in the starfish.

15/10/14