Schrödinger’s Dave, sealed in his flat like
a womb. Theoretical. On New Year’s Eve maybe,
Valentine’s, while we fucked & ate cheese. It is hard
to notice what isn’t there. The absence of a key
turning in a lock, feet not-pattering down the stairs.
Was it the dying that changed everything
or the moment they let the smell out?
What the angle of a hinge can do.

At the crematorium, Dave’s mother
is wrecking, palpably shattering. I have been
that song at a funeral. I have worn that
heavy jacket. I keep offering out the chair
I’m sitting in, next to her. I wonder if
I could possibly be comforting her;
repeating softly of course, rubbing her
shoulder with my thumb through her
thick pink coat. Somebody smooths
their trousers & says: there’s a rainbow
outside. Somebody says: did you get caught
up in the road closure? Someone is saying:
I’m so sorry, he was always so kind to me
I think it is my mouth, I think it is
wobbling