Third Version Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

Didn't a dictator admire Böcklin's artwork?
Didn't he hunt down the third version
for himself and the Third Reich?
Didn't he build gas chambers
and pluck out the stars of the night?

A rocky islet, the water tar,
no tallow light,
ringed with cypress, eyelashes elongated,
painted with sleet and the dead.
Only the night, a foundling,
suckling on the moon,
weaning on the faint wind and stars.

An islet that lives behind my eyelids,
tides rushing in but mostly out,
with the boatman's oars
bringing a white casket ashore.

Listen, a gull-cry.
Nobody weeping.
Freud takes notes.