95

He is at the sink watching the
Front of the house when they
Pull up. There is a handgun
And two clips of ammunition
In the sink, a length of rope,
A stanley knife and some tape.
There is a strong wind and
Big wet leaves are blowing
Down from the trees and from
The guttering and hurtling past
The window in confused groups.
There is a sheen of rain over
Everything. The day is overcast.

Four men get out of the car.
His vision seems to have blurred
And he can hear his own breathing.
They are silent, watching the house.
One has a hand inside his jacket.

94

Wasps gather at the open seam
Of wood where the stump lies
On the driveway. There is sap
Under the bark in a strata of
Pink and they swarm at it.
As the shadow of the still
Blade of the chainsaw passes
Over they boil up in unison
And scatter and then recluster
In. The engine sputters and it
Produces an acrid wave of
Smoke that engulfs them and
That trails in ragged bits
Across the stump and disperses.
Then the saw bites and
A torrent of wooddust comes out.

The wasps weave and spiral in the
Rushing matter like embattled ships.

93

He stood before the refridgerator
And it was dark in the room.
The only light was from inside.
Bottles of lager and stacks of
Smoked ham and a brick of butter
With a clover leaf in the side of it.
The butter and ham and the beer
Shone with condensation in the
Blond light and he looked at them.
He heard the boiler firing on
The outside wall of the room
Adjacent. He slowly reached in
And took a beer and the ham
And the butter in hand and he
Opened the cupboard and he got
Bread and started to butter it
And he made a roll of ham and
Spead it with mustard and folded
It inside the slices of bread.
He paused with it in his hand
And listened to through the wall
To the low, dampened sound of
The man and woman next door
Fighting; the fall of feet on wood,
The formless howling noises, and
Then the obscure sound of a
Concussion vibrating in the wall.
He ate the sandwich slowly
And he went back to his bed.

91

He is at the table with eggs and
Coffee and cigarettes and the paper.
His face is pale and he leans in
To read the paper with a white
Scrap of egg hung from the prongs
Of the fork in his hand and he
Is motionless but for his red eyes.
The paper is old and the coffee also.
There are tracks of nicotine over
The surface of his palm as if a
Grained form of predetermination.
He reaches for a cigarette and for
His lighter and for a moment light
Visits the cavities of his still face
Flashing in and shaking on him and
In his rheumy eyes flames shake,
Until he snaps the lighter closed.
The only sounds are the articulations
Of a clock, and the cigarette burning.

90

He sits under the window in a
White silk shirt listening to the radio,
And drinking orange juice. It is 6am.
His hair is abstracted and greying
And rises to a pale crown that
Shines vaguely in the little light from
The windows. The curtains are drawn
So this comes in narrow cataracts, all
Is a dull blue and mainly it is dark.
The radio is low and it is something
About the war. Calm, measured voices,
As under some kind of anaesthetic.

He cradles his eyes in his hand.
They are far back in grey recesses
And they are closed. He gets up and
Reaches for his cigarettes and stands
With one in his mouth doing up the
Black buttons of his shirt. It seems big
In the half light—as if he were a clown,
Or a mime, or a child in a nightgown.

89

I followed her through the back
Fields and the air was humming
With motes and white particles
Of cotton and spores and insects.
The high grass was burning as it
Caught the light and it dropped
Into shadow where I trampled it
And I could see patches of her
White dress as she skipped ahead.
But she was lost because it was
Getting dark out and the stars
Were prickling out like burrs.
I heard her yelp and fall down
And when I got there she was
Lying in a depression of the grass
Grown ragged all around and she
Was laughing and her dress was
White I could see the shape of.
I stood over her where she lay.
She stopped laughing and she
Pulled me down slowly to her.

88

The potato plants are dying and it
Has just rained and the sunset
Is paling out beyond the hawthorns.
The dry joists of old growth are
A yellow that lumines of itself where
They cluster brightly in the cool and
Falling air like shabby fireworks.
Structures grand in death, they
Gain a deep light as the evening
Lets go itself, ending almost white
As if their former tubers had shed
And abandoned elaborate wings.
They resign their intricacies now,
Become jaune blurs against darkness
Like gouts of soft smoke broken
And drifting after a downpour. They
Dissolve and refigure, and with them
All shade and contour and motion.

87

It is after the rain the passerines
Cross the gulf from the far trees
To the cherry in the lee of the
House, the branches trembling as
Solitary drops leave them as the
Sunflowers limpid and bright sway.
Then the passerines cross to feed
In the premature gloom, a light
That pulls colour from the plumage
Of the birds and from the earth.
They pivot on the air in contest
And reorder themselves continually
And eat the dry millet from the
Plastic vessels and meshwire tubes
And come and go from the bushes
In abrupt clusters of wingbeats
With no system at all in their action.
Their hearts race all the time inside
Them, made up of ligaments and
Valves like minute components in
An archaic and dense clockwork.
They are all motion, recrossing dark.
They starve in their sleep otherwise.

86

I sit on the porch and clean
My gun piece by piece first the
Receiver then the rotary magazine
Then the operating rod and the
Small valves like the chambers of
The heart. The rotary magazine
Seems to stick as I reinsert it so I
Get oil and a cloth and work it
Over until the action is fluid. Then
I get wood treatment and I take
The long joined piece of the stock
And the misshaped butt and rub
The wood with oil and reattach it.
Finally I affix to the iron end stub
A small bayonet. This is for if the
Shot should bring the animal
Down maybe hitting only an artery
Or the spine but not kill it in which
Case we use the bayonet as a mercy
And an expedient. I stand the rifle
Against the facade and sit a while
In the yellow atmosphere out here.

85

That night I remember I was up
Late at the kitchen table drinking a
Glass of milk when he came in all
Messed up. He was stumbling around
And shaking something terrible as
He took off his work clothes in
The dark by the door and when
He came to the table he was red
In the face drinking a glass of water
And closing his eyes. He didn't talk at
All and I only heard days later
How Job had become caught in
The thresher and how they had not
Been able to shut it off and how
It had ground on for a quarter of a
Mile with them all heaving at Job
And at the machine and screaming
At each other and how when John
Finally ripped the tubes out of the
Ignition Job was mutilated so bad
His arm was gone to the shoulder
And he was sick grey, and how they
Had carried the body five miles to
His mother's house and laid him
Out in a stretcher of old plastic.