The wind is cutting through this January night,
Slicing like a knife through my meagre clothes.
Signs on the road are hidden by an iron fog
Cry of the wind is all in vain as far as I'm concerned.
I kiss you, again,  across this black hole in time.
In the old be-jewelled spider-webbed way we had
To kiss tender, to kiss long,
Frost-filled graveyard and the dead remain;
Yew trees shadowed against the moon.
No trembling now from the scattered remains
Eviscerated by all that time can do to human blood,
And hearts and lips and eyes and brains.
In earth-infected graves there is no point in lies
No pretend disguise. I had once kissed her eyes
On a night like this. Held her close. Toasted her
With my words. Languidly made love with her:
Shared an ancient consciousness of what it is
To be a man, to be a woman. trapped by mortality:
Yet, nothing had prepared me for this emptiness.
As I stand alone in this freezing unghosted space
My insides squirming like a snake
As I try to make out the palimpsest of names and dates:
Unsoaked in perfume, unattended by lips like raspberries;
Tears can not  do justice to our frost-whitened love.