Jam

This is a first draft. I think it's going to need a lot of effort to make this work the way I want it to.

Jam

Inside the sky
a long arch of leaves

and inside the arch
four lines of cars.

Inside a black Mercedes
behind a partition

a man organises
what’s left of his life.

*

‘Is she young?’ she asked.
He was thinking about

Gruyk’s theory, and finding it
lacking in logic, raised

a Budvar can and drank in
the news that she knew.

What difference does it make?
he thought out loud.

*

The awful crem harmonium
squeaks psalms in his head.

Deadlines on Friday, lunch
with Sue on Saturday –

‘I’m an architect,’ he told her
on first meeting. Collect

the casket on Monday. Smoke
from the funnel is ash-free.

*

Cause of death unknown –
to spare his feelings,

the undertaker whispered.
He dumps the verdict

in a rarely-dusted corner
of his brain; everything

has its own cell. It takes
three weeks with paracetamol.

*

Sue is young. The car
crawls down the tunnel

of leaves. Saturday at ten
they will make love;

he will kiss only Sue’s lips.
She stood near the back

at the crematorium.
Good of her to come.

*

He locks away
fifteen years of marriage

in the love-cell.
The homily he keeps

for public admiration,
stores it like stained glass

in a cathedral. What he
can’t see, can’t hurt him.

*

The leaves are thick,
but thin strips of light

spindle down his black tie.
When he sees the road ahead

mirror the sky’s naked glare,
he fears losing

himself in so much space,
in white and boxless air.

*

Beyond the partition
outside the car, the trees

draw back their branches,
and the sky waits

for a cloud, for a haircut
on Tuesday, for a man

it doesn’t know to step out
and leave the door ajar.