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.