Wintering Carol Ann Duffy

All day, slow funerals have ploughed the rain.
We've done again
that trick we have of turning love to pain.


Grey fades to black. The stars begin their lies,
nothing to lose.
I wear a shroud of cold beneath my clothes.


Night clenches in its fist the moon, a stone.
I wish it thrown.
I clutch the small stiff body of my phone.


Dawn mocks me with gibberish of birds.
I hear your words,
they play inside my head like broken chords.


*


The garden tenses, lies face down, bereaved,
has wept its leaves.
The Latin name of plants blur like belief.