Between Cold Sheets
I'm up in the attic fiddling around
with the junction box,
feeling the itch of glass fibre.
My brittle-boned wife shrank and withered
soon after we wed.
We're too sad to be together
in these mirror-streaked mornings,
remembering toothpaste and lies.
I call down--she doesn't reply,
but the lights go again,
and her cry is a foghorn.
She is old
and the heather grows thick and woody.
Soon we must burn.
The sea is black with old ships:
she tells me these are
the motes in my eye,
she says we must go out
and gather together,
I don't recall what or why,
but later, down by the railway line
I think of her sister,
drinking two bottles a night,
loving and laughing between cold sheets.