Breathing, Moving

BY JENNIFER GREENE

Clock hands ticking.
Twin bastards of grief.
Graceless and obvious things,
licking away the crumb-trail that leads back
to the loss, the longing against the lack.
Astonishing, astonished moon,
face-of-God clockface, inconsolable object. 
Weeping Janus.  Points towards
the white sheet of the future that
mutes the signs of loss, in spite of everything
which breathes and moves. 

In spite of everything which breathes and moves
my eye neatens each crease of the North Sea’s
jutting haggard spinal tide, its white coughed-up phlegm.
Soothes all turbulence from a shore raising hackles.
Willing things in and out of existence.
Dreams. Phantoms. Drawn from
the North Sea of uncontainable absence.
Dreich blanket, seething
with the enormity of bereavement.

Cover Image: ‘Emblem,’ Alasdair Gray