The italic capital O
of his mouth,
skin the colour of butter
and the burst traceries
of blue an violet
veins, flowering late,
conspired to add
half a century
in an hour, to his
then irrelevant age.
For one whose mouth
rarely opened in life,
it lolled indiscreetly,
I tried to close it twice,
but it wouldn't.
Later I saw the alabasterÊ
tears of the Magdalene.
These are two silent things:
The falling snow...
...the mouth of one just dead.
tony dash