I couldn’t place
That word. One sentence
In italics. Nothing
In your life was
Play. You burned through
Life, each breath an
Incandescent flower;
Each sense possessed with
Molten power,
Scorching its mark in
A world that you
Made then withdrew.

There was nothing fey or
Bloodless on your path.
Then why that word
'Game'? Gamekeeper,
Perhaps. Or was it pride,
The slow, dry slide of
Self-sufficient regard
That you saw in your
Snake; in your class-
Breaking tide on its
Slow swelling rise?

I should not have loved you:
Too close to bone; a class
Apart - long vowels in place
Of Derbyshire. I
Left my birth behind, a
Mardy southern lass.
Thorpe Cloud, a peaky
Eden, was choked
From a sulphurous past.
Those slate grey hills
Held miners’ hands,
Blasting their breath for bread.
(In George Street, by the Midland
Hotel the shops are
Shuttered, dead.)
Women buy hats and talk -
The Masons’ Ball –
Climb grimly upward, children first,
Hauled by asbestos thread.

And were you game? Whose lead,
Whose road did you ply? When
Your ships went over their
Furrowed grooves, what
Song was drawn in the air?
Did you dance on the
Waves? Did you break
The phosphorous at your bow to
Be bright with the stars and the sea and
The dark waves’ light?
Did you fight?

(I turn in vain from the
Window, the vision now
Fading, the last green
Slipping from the leaves, clouds
Gather my mind again.)

They cut a shroud from
Shame to put out your fire.
Stuffed your lungs with the
Censor’s cobwebs, snuffed your
Words out, left you guttering
In the wind. Only deep

In the wide drum of the world
Your pulse still echoes.

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