That a man leaves nothing,
not even a scrap

a name that is his own
or even a solid thouaght

to warm his fears:

when the last fire leaves the evening sky
the wind hurtling in the rafters

and his heart is sighing,

death, death, death–
it is never time.

We stay with our birth sounds:
January at the windows of a council flat

and a fat woman washing her hands
at a cracked sink–

murder, murder, murder,
were the flat cries

from the bloody gore of broken flesh

while God waits on the dark landing
his body hard and empty

like an underground river.

This is the name I give myself and every man:
to be molten stone and hunger

iron ore in a smelting foundry
the rock that is chain

the pain of torn mind and sinew.