That way, on the day they dig us out

they’ll know that you were something really fucking fine

and I was nowt.

Keep that in mind,

because the worm won’t know your make of bone from mine.

FIVE ELEVEN NINETY NINE

The makings of the fire to end all fires,

the takings of the year, all kinds of cane

and kindling to begin with, tinder sticks,

the trunk and branches of a silver birch

brought down by lightning, dragged here like a plough

through heavy earth from twenty fields away.

Timber: floorboards oiled and seasoned, planking,

purlins, sleepers, pelmets, casements, railings,

sacks of sweepings, splinters, sawdust, shavings.

Items on their own: a fold-away bed,

an eight-foot length of four-by-two, a pew,

a tea chest—empty, three piano legs,

a mantelpiece and a lazy Susan,

a table-top, the butt of a shotgun,

a toilet-seat, two-thirds of a triptych,

a Moses basket with bobbins in it,

a pair of ladders, half a stable-door,

a stump, one stilt, the best part of a boat,

a sight-screen stolen from the cricket field,

a hod, a garden bench, a wagon wheel.

We guess the place, divine it, dig a hole

then plant and hoist and pot the centre pole—

tall, redwood-size, of the telegraph type,

held tight with guy-ropes, hawsers, baling wire—

and for a week it has to stand alone,

stand for itself, a mark, a line of sight,

a stripe against the sky. Steeple, needle,

spindle casting half a mile of shadow

at dusk, at dawn another half-mile more.

Held down, held firm, but not to climb or scale;

strung, stayed, but with an element of play—

in wind the top nods inches either way.

Thing to surround, build around, or simply

the solid opposite of a chimney.

Symbol, signal, trigger for those people

who deliver all things combustible

this time of year, who rummage through attics

and huts, cellars and sheds, people who check

the yards and feet and inches of their lives

for something safe to sacrifice, figures

who visit the site, arrive with a box

and set it down like a child’s coffin, or

those who come after dark, before first light,

with black bags that are bursting with something

and nothing. Rolls of oilcloth are carted

by hand. A furlong of carpet appears

that must have been brought here by van. Some kid

comes a mile and a third, uphill, to tip

a hundredweight of paper from a pram,

and a man turns up to empty a bin,

does so, picks through the garbage, finds a thing

or two—a ball of string, a leather shoe—

loads up and takes his findings home with him.

Later still that man comes back with a rough

half-full half-empty sack of low-grade coal—

offensive now within this smokeless zone—

and lugs it, wears it draped around his neck

like a dead foal, one hand hold of each end;

then on his knee he lays it down. Two coals

run out like two rats across the hard ground.