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“We can’t talk, ‘cos we’re dead”

We are dead,
Bobbing in the sea.

An accident.

Our skin is blue,
I turn to you and I say …
“I love you”,
And a wave makes us almost kiss.
You say: “I’m not sure
Anymore, about us”.

We can’t really talk, ‘cos
We’re dead,
But, somehow, I spoke
And I heard what you said.
I search your eyes for the joke,

But they are the colour of nails that broke
Off fingers, a door had crushed.
And, suddenly, your hair
Becomes the hair distress has brushed,
As someone, living, fires a flare.

Still, your life-jacket holds the breath
My lungs had warmed before my death,
So even now, though we are dead,
My love can still support your head.

Morning:
A holiday flashes through a crack,
And the seagulls queue beside the plaque
That reads: “They used to live here”,
As fish devour us beneath the pier.

They eat the substance of disease,
Between the bread of our healthy flesh,
The browner teeth and the falsies
Are mixed with wisdoms that are fresh.
Afflictions, untreatable when we lived -
Our stressful handicaps - are sieved
In the stomachs of strange fish.
But your soul is still ill and selfish,
And mine still dwells on what you said
When, first, we were dead.


Included in my book, 'Failure Crawled up my Leg', published in 2002 by Indoor Fighting Press.