1.
Again I heard the horse
Last week
Again it caught me by surprise
Hoofbeats
On the hard street
A space between the notes
And then
The fading into silence
The silences between the things
That come to mind…
A single summer voice
One night in 1990
Going home alone
Olé Olé Olé Olé
Reaching
Over the roof-tops
In through my window
2.
This present Monday
There was almost nothing:
Nothing from the roof
No rattling in the attic
Only the hazy separated blurs
Almost a whisper
All night
Of rain on the glass
On Tuesday night
The wind swept in
And filled the space with hugeness
3.
Three times last night
In the small hours
The horse went trotting up the road
Hoofbeats on glass
In the rain
I heard
The summer voices
Underneath my window
Young couples and late-night drinkers
Sitting on the steps
Discoursing
Devouring the eclipse:
The rusty moon
The colour of dried blood
4.
We think
The things we know
Will last forever:
The young woman
In the house next door
To this
Has died today aged thirty-one