From the chapel, a muttered kind Of evensong As if the day, chagrined At prosaic hours Divides The door prows a wave Holds still, splits Along the keel Where one boat capsized Two resurface A tilted line, in reflection The horizon bisecting monuments and earth A magpie, creaking out Gives the evening silver They are not the dead But fly languidly from grave to grave Perching on our arch and glib effacements Graffiti thrown like sticks On the gateway’s Unprepossessing defences Songs to silence, songs to wake A boat so full of holes and binds Of curled and flaked wrought iron You could easily step through To a more pitiable contradiction Of discomfiting formal attire In splashed pretty chiaroscuro Head cocked, listening A magpie reverence Dreaming the quiet dreams Of the dead
