Westoe Pit
of the ornament black/white
pressing-curve
-ature
cau(gh)terized fingers, tracing
this towel’s design:
fabric genome
dead signs
that small ticklesense shivers the pattern,
a first step into his winter of thens
sprinkled as black specks fluff depths
permission
per-DNA of story until his
face appears
Holbein’s Dead Christ sure—
“but have you tried mining, have you…”
have you when that hand looks no stronger
than the waving of an impromptu parable?
gesticklelating jezebel
walking that down distance to that tomb
of a home he lived in with Peggy
tea/ teased/ egg on my face
an outburst
of resemblance
trippy smoke from his Woodbine fag
his mission
fifty odd years in a mine
with the same audience and
poor
lighting
lit public house no wine no
whining just pints
better without rising from the dead
even though he did each and every
collecting
these microdots of pore-friendly deposits,
bringing to Quarry Lane an endless supply
of (coal)dustto dust
now that’s the face of resurrection it is
that leaves no trace
except here in the pit
of his stomach
overture
of here
rubbedbrilliant clean
upon this towel.
