East Enders Wives

(album: Ten Stories - 2012)

We met by chance by the row river sign
Our soft fire danced as our tea leaves dried
She hatched our plans in the atmospheric tides
Said, "Let's give up sacrifice this Lent
Well, that joke's long, it's been spent"

So as the fool on the bagpipes played
We kept cool in the parasol shade
Your thumb on my page at my tender age
East enders wives

And hidden in the fox thorn blind
We grew old as the foxtail pine
Sheep in the cold shielding our gold
Sipping on milk and water like

She packed our bags some arbitrary time
Then waved like a flag from the white star line
Unmoored, unwell, though I seldom elegize
We both been untrue but I'm still counting on you
Like an invisible rosary

And as the past and all plans are undone
Slowly sank like a shipwrecked sun
Bridges and ropes, burning them both
Burned up the sky

Choir sang as the black birds fell
Sorrow rang like the church-yard bells
An axe to the trees, smoke for the bees
And all our dads died