First glimpse of the pearl
I cup in my clammy hand
outside a mirror:
chastened as crystal I sit,
...
On the train to Birkenhead
for her father's autopsy,
...
It's not a virus.
You'll never get over it.
You'll grow around it
...
Winter sunshine dazzled the old man
with graffiti in his eyes as on
...
His son died in the war:
his beard grew unkempt
like the High Chamberlain's
('The kindest and the best of men')
...
I died on 9/11.
I was outside - a miracle! -
floating, not flying,
in the plume of smoke you could see from space
...
Before we were men and women
we drank morning milk in a chalk mine.
It smelt, and we raced from kissing.
In the playground, I gazed up
...
The Iraqi boy was twelve
when he lost his hug. Napalmed
by testosterone, straitjacketed, he smouldered.
...
On Friday I unfrocked Fourth
from its alb and tracked the comet
of stylus over glittering tar,
rapt at the tangerine flame of label.
...
I commend to your attention
the immeasurable sadness
of that huge brown teddy bear
slumped in the window
...