I One among friends who stood above your grave I cast a clod of earth from those heaped there Down on the great brass-handled coffin lid. It rattled on the oak like a door knocker And at that sound I saw your face beneath Wedged in an oblong shadow under ground. Flesh creased, eyes shut, jaw jutting
(Double Portrait in a Mirror)
I
To the meeting despair of eyes in the street, offer
Your eyes on plates and your liver on skewers of pity.
When the Jericho sky is heaped with clouds which the sun
Trumpets above, respond to Apocalypse
With a headache. In spirit follow
The young men to the war, up Everest. Be shot.
So, so breake off this last lamenting kisse, Which sucks two soules, and vapours Both away, Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this, And let our selves benight our happiest day, We ask’d none leave to love; nor will we owe Any, so cheape a death, as saying, Goe;
Goe; and if that word have not quite kil’d thee, Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too. Oh, if it have, let my word worke on mee, And a just office on a murderer doe. Except it be too late, to kill me so, Being double dead, going, and bidding, goe.
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