By Emily Tuttlebury
They tell me the veil is thin.
It’s a curdled morning.
Frost in the glass
and on the marsh
terns laugh.
You should be cursed
over the stove, licking kippers, aubade
with the radio,
making my smart shoes
half-new with Wren’s.
Milk bottles and doorways.
The cold walks in.
You hardly ever walk me to school.
That October you painted my face
and played like I frightened you.
I kiss you in dreams and worry
that I wouldn’t know you now.
Perhaps at New Year, I’ll start dowsing,
buy a Ouija board and reach out
in a churchyard, chasing persistence.
Or perhaps I’ll stop caring.
Perhaps that’s that.
Perhaps there’s more in Philosophy than
in Heaven and Earth.