Last Drive

He managed to drive homeBut it ended on the pavement –The rest is all ornament:Flowers, hymns, a fancy boxAnd a fancy term for the unknowable:Ventricular Fibrillation – a heart gone madIn a mad world.In the funeral car I sit by my motherAlone with our thoughts.We pass through Sheepridge where we livedAs a child and a young wife.‘If ever you say that word again,God will strike you dead.’To an six year old –‘Men who look at magazines like thisAre sick and depraved.’To a sixteen year old.‘ Fuck’ and a few nudes it seemsFucked us up.But I have my own kids nowAnd I’ve read Larkin.

The car stops and I realiseThe grudge is as heavy as the boxBut I will take no blame when we fell apart,For at least I did not hit back with a riposte –It was not me, I tell myself , who broke his heart.