For David Kelly
Not ten hours dead and velvet shines
rainbows
stark against fields where streams sluice
over stone;
upended and dropping from taut, country
gallows,
moles are transfixed. Their trapper alone
climbs to the copse, where keepers in
plainclothes
search out another set up to atone
for frenzied top-feeders, who, hunting in
shallows,
shear flesh from the bones of - Ah, there he
is! Prone.
Down by sharp reeds scraping dirges to
minnows,
blood-snouted signallers, dancing, make
known
to ambulance-drivers, who haul past the
meadows
a red-wristed corpse, its essences flown,
that up at the house with dark-curtained
windows
a widow and family wait till a phone
whispers the message, “It’s sad, but what
follows
needs delicate hands to level death’s tone.”
Back on the wire where moles shift in
shadows,
a fly slickens eggs over eyes that have
grown
impartial, if blighted by blank-stares at
sideshows
propped to the beams with the dead and the
blown.
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