Denise Riley
You men who go in living flesh
You men who go in living flesh
Scour clean then drape your souls
In plumy dress that they may rise
Clear of those thrashing shoals
Of mackerel of the sea who call
You loiterers on the strand
To heed your future salted lungs
Pegged out to dry on sand.
I was upright upon the field
Another thing in the sea.
Its light has washed my eyelids shut.
Green grass floats over me.
Hope is an inconsistent joy
Yet blazes to renew
Its lambent resurrections of
Those gone ahead of you.