Liebestod
i.m. Keith Dawson
Snapping the louvres shut against the night
I brush against the sculpture you once owned
– The Citizen, a muscled hero, naked
except for a belted skin around the loins.
He reminded you, perhaps, of nights you’d spent
with crophaired men brought home from Earl’s Court bars,
check shirts stretched tight across their chests, and eyes
flicking round the room as they raised their beer.
Was it bought before or after the diagnosis
and the doctor’s cold advice: You won’t live long,
enjoy your money now? As your eyes lingered
on the barrelled torso, from the bath you lay in,
you must have thought of the gym-toned lover
whose sickness you inherited. The water
turned slowly red. Tonight, as fog billows
around our house, I think of you that evening,
when mist rolled up from the void, wrapping you
in an embrace as gentle as his strong arms.
Antony Mair recently returned to England after seven years in France, and now writes poetry in Hastings, East Sussex, on a daily basis. He is an active member of the Brighton Stanza group and the Hastings Arts Forum Poets.