Wild Court

An international poetry journal based in the English Department of King’s College London

Late – Fiona Sampson

Late

 

Not much use				
saying then				
I was busy 
I was asked 

as if to suggest
there were orders 		
I only followed 
useless afterwards

when you find
it was your life
you murdered
your own life 

that mobile
muscled thing so sweet			
to hold 
but always slipping 

out of your arms 
grasping
and letting slip
you thought 

it would outlast you
with its promise
and clean flesh 
sometimes 

you grasped air 
but you thought
that there would always be
this other thing

beyond the body 
beyond soul even
keeping you 
company somewhere 

not quite forgotten
not quite held 
in mind persisting
all the same.

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