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GRACE

In the stark black and

white sketches of October,

we watch small handfuls

of sparrows scatter.

Sip tea, talk of life

and death as the wind

swirls rain and dry leaves

in equal measure.

You embarrass me

with the short trousered

evidence of the

boy I used to be.

Pressed to the past,

I think of schooldays.

The sweet, sour taste  of

stolen crab apples,

hide and seek, marbles.

Your laughter lingers

in the rooms arid air,

as spare and graceful

as the whisper of

wheat in autumn sun,

and I realise

you are not afraid.

ISCARIOT AND ELVIS COSTELLO

I watch the thin

blue veins of smoke

rise through 4pm.

My glass, which now

contains the sum

total of who

I am, turns tiny

ribbons of sun

to dull amber.

A disembodied

juke-box flutes the

syllables of

 your name across

an empty bar.

Alison, I know

this world is 

killing you.

Your face is full

of years, as the

rosebud of your

lips slashes, true

as Judas` kiss

in Gethsemane.

MAGDALENE 

Mary entered
like a silken paraclete

and spoke in tongues
(Comment allez-vous?)
with lips
as red as early apples.

While music burned
and night
bled into day

her eyes said
I have my pride
and don’t need pity.

In a room grown
cold as an epiphany,
her hands made
trembling love
to the ghost
of a cigarette.

Then she paused.

As if waiting
for the first stone
to be thrown.