I love the finality involved in this Sophie. You have a healthy awareness of 'death' and the inspiration that it fires at you through pea-shooters. Very intense piece too. I've just read it and this is my initial reaction. You do 'death' very well. Tell me. Are you Welsh?

I like this but it has left me feeling somewhat numb.

I think the dull finality, which was and is inevitable, brings this poem to a natural death.

It brings me also to a natural numbness (which some people would say I am most of the time). Almost like the numbness of death.

I find it difficult to comment for this very reason.

I like it.

Whoops!

I see it now.

How foolish do I feel?

Bearing in mind what you have said, I think it is a briliant poem which still leaves me numb when I read it with the new meaning.

Oops! To be honest Sophie, I wouldn't have read all what you were trying to convey, in the words that you used in the poem. Your explanation was itself a woven thread and this highlights the difficulty is saying exactly what we want to say in just a few words. I'm guilty of it too. Just because I know what I'm trying to say I feel that just a few words are enough. But you need to give the reader a little bit to play with (sounds rich coming from me). I often feel that when you start having to explain the workings of a poem then this is when you realise it needs tweaking.
But your style sits very comfortable with me and like I said, I hadn't picked the bones out of it before I commented.
Interesting that you mention Philip Larkin, he is perhaps my favourite poet. Miserable. misogynist(?) and very, very, perceptive. Every family should have its Uncle Philip Larkin.

Great piece of work Sophie though does come across as a bit dark.
I've done quite a bit in tracing my family tree, hard work but at times very rewarding.
Resulted in a song called "Incestuous Necrophilia (or screw your family tree)"