The car deaf as a hearse
from the screaming weight
of all that came before,
we drive down a tarmac slashed
by white line, white line,
into the splintered light
of the woods waiting,
like eternity, just outside town.
We seek loam incestuous
with sodden bracken and leaf-rot,
homing to the earth that gruels
hair, skin, nails and flesh,
mulling bones for dogs.
There is no ground here
for the posthumous,
its ceremonies and detectives.
Psychology is impure as memory,
and anger a grubby friend,
the loner we embrace
when we masturbate.
Look: there is a birch leaf,
dazzling and uncertain,
yet to fall in this forest of late sun.
