Trevor Joyce: Twin Relative Deposition

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Twin Relative Deposition
2 years of watches remark the end of autumn

Subtle as the leaking stench of gas
that trembles the slight web of sleep
they died; and so quick the dead
lose their composure, moulting age with face.
all habit broken and all gesture discontinued.

The dandelion, frost-quenched, watches in the house,
marks time along the well-path; lion's-tooth
that emptied cheek and jaw of meat,
hiding in the hollow house now, waiting
near the well where the neighbours don't go now.

Soon even the memory will be gone,
the old woman and her brother will be a broken habit;
the neighbours will compose new plots;
the well-path will be overgrown;
well forgotten, covered by a policy of growth.

Lion's-tooth, famished at the acrid lakeside,
re-mounts to the village as the mercury drops:

oil bright in a crock,
flame tilting at the wick;
blue-herons in a bladed bay.

last autumn month.