forgiveness – O Tatyana – who died the next day in a fall,

and our heavy-lidded bald employee Avi Yaniv,

sitting at his canteen table in a lemon-yellow polo shirt

and creamy cotton planting gloves,

refolds once and refolds again and sets the note

to one side, for delivery to the Western Wall.

He likes his work. He breaks for lunch. He talks about the post:

how an index card arrived last week with a shiny nickel

taped to it: ‘I would like to thank you kindly for

this most amazing chance to participate in full

with regards to your one-off and exclusive offer

of prizes and awards in the Christian Faith.’

Some stay with him. The lonely, a Londoner,

who asked only for his recently deceased wife

to be returned to talk to in his dreams.

They tell him of terrible pain inside

O Rabi Jesus, His Reverence, The High Priest,

Great Lord, Dios, Muros de los Lamentos,

The Living Word, The Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ,

The Great Temple, The Holy One, Mein Gott,

Klagemauer, Israel, King David, Jerusalem,

Alpha, Omega, Almighty God

at night when I’m walking with the dog I find I’m

talking to the dog, and do you find that, I ask him.

Spree

The gardener mown down. The typist erased.

The postman dispatched and the vet put to sleep.

The fishmonger opened from anus to throat.

The binman wasted, bagged and disposed of.

The farmer led out like a lamb to the slaughter

and the son, the lost one, hanged from a beam,

is gathered at last to his mothers and fathers . . .

The butcher murdered. The baker butchered.

The candlestick-maker snuffed in his basement,

a flurry of blows to the back of the skull

with one blunt instrument, now missing,

since He’s packed everything into his holdall

and calm, alert, efficient, left, not at all

discontented with how his day’s looking.

Observance

Midway or Thermopylae

I watched the war couchant.

I watched the war on drugs

or drunk.

Geronimo. Banzai. Tallyho.

There is no catchword that I know

for the opposite of war,

a battle-cry

to herald only central heating

and four

triangles of buttered toast.

I watched the war supine

and saw the wars I watched

squared, and how,

and now

I watch the war concerned.

I mean the war in question.

Almost noon

when I declared and took

the field to walk the bitch

and carry back this lank posy

of cowslips,

and the hot soft ouroboros

of dogshit wrapped in plastic.

The Future

I can tell you that the organizing principle is grief.

You will lack weather. And if you sleep the dream

will just be a repeat of what you dreamt before,

the usual attempt to get somewhere fast on foot

as it grows clear – and also infinitely more obscure –

why you’re exempt from ever getting there, why

every door you pass through only exits on another

flagstoned corridor, bordering another clean lawn

that seems the same one, and a jazz band’s playing.