an old(ish) poem

Returning to the house one afternoon there is the smell,

but not the feel, of rain. In the middle of the road, between

the narrowly parked cars, a couple walk up the hill

slowly, bright green plastic bags

on all four arms. She, some metres

ahead, turns to encourage. He is reluctant to be

encouraged. Just recently I listened to and almost

understood a broadcast from the south of Germany, in which scientists

explained how readily we can be persuaded to accept

that an image represents our past: the document

that bears false witness is supplied

as its own authenticating stamp. Film

can do likewise, the long take insincere

in its surplus of reality. One of those little deceptions,

Bryan might have called it, the fat man on a beach.

Dead three weeks later: suicide

creates a past, and in this if nothing else can be contagious.

A woman had hung from a tree, music softly

drifting from her headphones, still in place.

He told me this as we sat in the back room,

in sight of the very same tree. I did not

ask whether he thought to cut her down, but heard

with incredulity and horror that the husband called round

later to apologise. We did not

talk about the day he nearly choked at lunch.

The time that lies ahead divides more vividly than

that which drifts behind. We cannot imagine

the passing of time, only suffer it, as from their faces

the couple seem to have suffered plenty, and still

persist in shopping so as to perpetuate. In a dream

I was a woman, went on a trip, and read

a poem about a murderer, which turned out to be

the story of that very trip. I did not have

this dream, but imagined that I had.

June 2013