Queen Street, 1990

Ending a passage thrumming with shadow,

totems of dynasties cracked to oblivion,

they power with figures cut
clear by knock and gouge.

Typed words before - Class I, Class II,

Class III. Provenance founders
on order adrift; snakes crook

near mirrors, rings clot

over slipped moons, hooded riders

clump on horseback. They gather;

an old alliance of symbol and silence,

confused in the half-light here.

I stretch for fullness under my hand,

find their defeat in fibre-glass,

a real few stacked beyond my reach.

Back at the house, they meet by walls

corrupt of mortar; block totters on black.

You scrape away the past year's leaves;

nipped grass breaks under the rake.

"I thought you'd gone back home."

The stones are dethroned

as each word chisels the air
between us. Shattered now,
what's dead stands dumb.