Coughing at a Funeral

I

I’d forgotten that the dales

washed away and rose, brick roads

and walls, closer, now that I’m on the train,

which shows I’ll probably forget again.

II

I’ve dodged the ticketman (thank god)

and am sitting with the snow

falling reluctantly out there,

now swept to a wind and a thaw

or are we just moving faster?

and my heart has stopped in the disabled parking spot

in a rush. too late it runs to the ticketbooth

   too late, it’s been a while since I’ve

   seen you, mum.

when it first snowed in Durham, we went out

and took some photos with the flash on high

and it caught the flecks mid-swooping, froze

like a wildflower with your eyes-tight-shut.

III

Brenda, the neighbour, makes us a cup of tea,

smoking its herbal cigarette, lit tea smog

melts and fogs the glass: out there is dark green

it’s a specific colour in these parts 

he was a good man, a private man –

he kept to himself – we barely saw –

that he did, that he did – a gentleman –

a Christian: although he preferred to golf on a Sunday.

this would be a secular service.

a fly buzzed from a flower, between the window and I. 

IV

and somewhere through the snow

and beyond the realisation that it will not settle

a restless and itching fall, it

drifts a cloak of white and all is melting

a crumb of which lands on my palm

and I think of our dinner table and the draft

as dad gives an impassioned speech

on why the window should be left ajar

and ice sits in the pockets of our skin

and we copy him – when we wish to press a point.

V

there’s something fragile in a speech

the numbers were low tonight, I’m there

you are, and I’m proud, it’s been a few months

and two things are happening at once

you are speaking and I am holding in a cough

and he is lying there with flowers on the box

and it feels disjointed as you invite us to give

to place a lilac sprig there as if it’s him

and onwards ticks his 1950s chemistry-set heart

we are sheepish, and I am holding in a cough

you tell them that he was a kind man

you thank the nurses because you are a kind woman

and I am shaking, holding it in, breath slow

I assume they think I’m crying, those I’m faceless for

you almost cried, I’m proud that you got through

speeches are fragile things – they quiver

with the shakings of a faceless boy

who isn’t really crying and didn’t really know the dead. 

VI

I’m writing too much like harry

I’m writing too much like ocean voung

my heart is neither parked in the wrong place

nor is it a thrumming chemistry kit

although that would explain yet again how sparse this is

I want you to have a glimpse but not a stare,

because I should, because mags like this print stuff like that:

thin lines and quiet – beautiful images –

my irises winking, watching, budding at the end of every sentence,

and feeling – yes?

But is the I that is lost to your reading enough for the weight of the dead?

VII

would you like this coat jacob?

would you like this jumper of his?

the hearse comes, we put his silverware in our pockets before we follow.

would you like this joke-nose, his fake rose?

would you like any nibbles?

the pallbearers were chosen in his very handwriting.

VIII

Brenda drives me to the station

I’ll see mum soon; I won’t see Geoff again.

faces on the platform edge: a man and his dog

drift around the track like sole wet petals

for it is just raining now, the nooks

of the world are full of fading inky sleet

and it’s just dark, the dales

settle into nothing and I am really mourning.