recombinationMichele Leggott
the digital media specialist
shone a very bright light into
the cupboard can I make you see
the bones how big they were
the sudden cartography
of that display in its glass case
purpose-built free-standing every
detail visible we could have walked
around them in the museum almost
able to touch to count to marvel
to read whatever was there before
the darkness of the cupboard
there were marks on the smaller
of the two the one we wanted to be
the one we were looking for
but there was no telling only a curious
need I was going to say desire
to run a hand over the double lobes
to right the upside down head
to get us out of the dark the way
Dorothy Pound stands in the garden
at Brunnenburg beside the Hieratic Head
set to catch the rays of the setting sun
a famous photograph
and the one I can't find but see clearly
the poet's funeral boat setting out
across the quiet water to the island
shrouded earth's winter confetti
blowing about in the bitter air
a lume spento that time
of going into the dark and the bones
gone into the fire or the great
aquifer of memory of knowing
where to look and who to call
m'amour m'amour a wild morning
on the south coast with the island
visible above black rock terraces
and the wind taking words
from the little knot of people
we say bidding farewell meaning
remember this place and that time
Olga Rudge sitting beside the body
in the camera ardente seeing
the white stone she will commission
and bring to the gardens of the dead
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