I am tearing the peel from an orange gently and somewhere
Far away a tree falls in a forest and we
don’t hear it but the ground does and the birds do

Every five minutes it does its job,
hoovers every inch of her memory,
declutters all pains and sorrows.

And once the father frowned
As the boy struggled to fasten
The drawbridge on his fort.
‘He’ll never be any good
With his hands’ he declared,
As if the boy wasn’t there.

Perhaps the friends of Lazarus, who died
and slipped his shroud, on seeing him might swoon
or rush to hear the tales of that beyond
they hoped and feared to face.

It takes ages. Tell me what it is you’re after
she says, when finally I get through.

I devoured the Olympics, filled my mouth
and scrapbook with sticky ephemera.

beneath night’s skin he unearths raw stones
serrated     encrusted    enigmatic    cold
 

we are at a cafe just round
the corner from hampstead
heath & sipping berry sunrise