EPITAPH

This is the place where time has come
to perish. Ice covered months, a stereo
quietly playing our Portishead cassette
when I picked you up. And the gentle
weeks of driving through fair Scotland’s
fields, blue skies as thick as spun sugar.
Days when my apple shampoo sharply
invaded the room, exact like the black
cicadas bursting into a porcelain tight
symphony. But also the delicate hours
in the back of my first car, pink mouths
murmuring words which set the night
on fire. Minutes baking red berry tarts,
longing for the seas, my head out first
to breathe your gold body in the foam.
Then wooden seconds, breaking speed
limits and forgetting to pay for parking
and rushing into A&E as the pain grew.
This is the place where time has turned
all our music into silence. Bold broken
bones made dust. And I’ve never been
able to wash your blood out of the seat.