Peter

I have new shoes. I am tall, new degrees of vision, the tops of things. Black gown, black gown on that, all black, the perverse precognition of objects.

It is cold in the court and I look at the lamps at each corner, frosted. Peter was playing squash. Pluvialis pressed to my ear, I say something. nothing. Peter was playing squash.

I go back to the table. Smeared long exposure evening dress, zoom burst wine glasses, the sound of my heels striking the wood, the tops of things. A crisp frame of the master's brown eyes, cocked sparrowlike, perspective-forced candle comas. Then I am on the other side of the table and she holds my hands, tiny and splintered. Tears on her knuckles and I am at home, Pluvialis holds my shoulders, my ribs hurt.

At the funeral a shifting, rippling mass of people makes no sound at all. Kippahs against the sky like something fruiting under frost. It is cold, colder and the soil is dark and we breathe water. The field behind us spits skylarks flip, flip watery mordent of sunset and desperation. I pull my gloves on and off, on and off, running my fingers through the wind. I put earth into the grave. I sleep cheek to the sod, wake cold, again and again. I burn myself, my hands, doorways are strange, thoughtless trajectories treacherous, keep out of reach of children. I will sit still a lot.

Vaulted wood inside after, I hold his wife's hands, we see each other for the first time, she is like the bloody pages of a book come to life, a staggering battlement of power and grief with a black cap of cropped hair. Our eyes meet and it is knowing that on the fens you are underwater. You have been abandoned, she says. A silence. The smell of tea.

Later on the wrong side of Trinity long tailed tits trilling through water shearing a wet birch, silent blackbird, the kigo of not happening.