of any kind. But on the other hand

the things we’re up against: clay, fibro, lime,

the silicates and tungstates, certain salts

and sodas, borax, alum; more than five,

not counting water and things of that kind.

Scissors cut paper and paper wraps rock,

rock blunts the scissors but water, water

swamps and dulls and rusts and dampens the lot.

Nothing else for it. The tightest of men

makes a move for his wallet, goes through it

for fivers, tenners and twenty-pound notes

and lets them drift to the little that’s left

of the incandescence, like petals, picked

for the purpose of proving love, or not.

Another takes a last look through a deck

of snapshots, passport-size, in black and white,

then deals that pack of thirteen photographs

to the fire, the way some poker player

sits and tosses cards into a cocked hat.

And each image burns with a true colour.

Another burns a book of stamps, a cheque,

a calling-card, goes through his pockets, finds

and flings a ticket stub, a serviette,

a driving licence, birth certificate.

Another pulls a hip flask from his side,

empties it out on a mound of briquette;

the liquid vaporizes into scent:

angelica, wormwood, star-anise, mint.

He turns to us and tells us what it is

or what it was, and then pockets the flask.

Another strips his friend of his flat cap,

prizes it from him like a bottle top,

then slings it, frisbee-style, into the ash.

Another man decapitates himself

or so it looks from here, beheads himself

it seems, unzips the detachable hood

from his coat for the sake of the lost cause,

looks for a naked flame, and on it goes.

And on it goes: a pair of gloves, a scarf,

a balaclava lifted from a face.

The act of keeping warm by burning clothes—

like eating your own hand to stay alive

or tapping your arm for a quart of blood

to survive. Tell that to the starving, though,

and the dry, those of us feeling the cold

tonight. We follow suit, burn every stitch

for one last wave of heat, pixel of light.

Unbuttoned but thankfully out of sight

except in the eye of the moon, silent

except for the padding of feet, bare feet,

we turn to go, then go together, home

in numbers, then in pairs and then alone

to houses ransacked and reduced to stone,

uncurtained windows, doors without doors,

to rooms that are skeletal, stripped, unmade,

to beds without cover, lamps without shade.

At dawn, through living daylight, half asleep,

we drift back to the place, which brings to mind

a crater punched home by a meteorite

or else a launch-pad or a testing-site.

Kicking through the feather-bed of ashes

someone flushes out a half-baked apple.

Softened, burnt and blistered on the skin, but

hardly touched within. Inedible thing,

the flesh gone muddy, foul, the core and pips

that no one cares to eat still fresh, still ripe,

and him who found it heads off down the slope