NO OTHER LIFE

 

In the pause between lives, we did not recognise ourselves

at first. Perhaps you were beardless – a young man, or shaven

 

on your deathbed. Maybe I laid down my glasses – absent

minded – remembering our common lineage, the farewells

 

we had to settle for. In letters from behind the fallen

Iron Curtain, your love who could not leave the snow-bound woods,

 

her homeland occupied. Those were the rules of engagement –

‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ became your chosen mantra.

 

Within that settlement I’ve drawn breath, made my own choices

sometimes, whether bad or better. But now my years creep up

 

on yours. We’ll climb this hill to its triangulation, hug

each other, see below a new world order on the brink

 

and cling to my inheritance, a gift for platitude:

you always said the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

 

ii. 2025

The tomorrow you worried about yesterday

In these dreich weeks, no-sun day follows no-sun day: mist clouds

the sugar factory steam, obscures its plume and presses down.

 

A bouquet of burnt roots, the edge of sweetness. When light cuts

through, low-angled, glowering afternoons lead to longest night.

 

We walk the shadows’ margin, forage for mistletoe, bring

the outside in. Shrubs in sackcloth guard our abbey flowerbeds:

 

hessian monks, bound and silent. O Come All Ye Bleak Ding-Dong

Gentlemen!  – hear the carols echo, inescapable.

 

Charity shopping for stocking fillers: the shock of Sambo

chinaware still on display, unwoken to empire’s end.

 

Scarlet-thick lips, whitened teeth you believed you should never

see again. Dickie bow collar of grinning servitude.

 

At least he wasn’t labelled Balthazar. That would be going

too far, even in a market town with genteel self-regard.

 

The quiz of Christmas yet to come. Counting the days, we cut

new blinds to the fashion of old fabric. Black out false dawns.

 

i . 2025