Aftershocks Predated

Your house was so empty
No weather forecast
Wind-blown and wood-grain
The dust stung your eyes
The walls wore a veneer
Too tender to last

Ode to the memory of your mamma’s warm heart
Where all was anchored
In the bay of chance

Your words were so empty
No summer clear skies
Wound down the stairs
To the vault of the past
Padlocked and airtight
With time-waxen lies

Ode to the memory of your mamma’s white lies
That sailed on the waters
To an unknown shore

Your eyes are the windows
To nobody’s soul
But lighthouses that guide
This loser back home
Shed of the lies
That we still have not told

Ode to the memory of your mamma’s soft tongue
Where the word was the music
In the ear of sea

Your smile is the stitching
On the morning’s warm hem
Lip-marked the rim
Of a coffee-cup cold
Sub-static hum
From which the future must stem

Ode to the memory of your mamma’s high laugh
Echoing round the houses
Of another world

August 2011