Gone,
I say and walk from church,refusing the stiff procession to the grave,letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June.
I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape.
I cultivatemyself where the sun gutters from the sky,where the sea swings in like an iron gateand we touch.
In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stonesfrom the whitehearted water and when we touchwe enter touch entirely.
No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead?
They lie without shoesin their stone boats.
They are more like stonethan the sea would be if it stopped.
They refuseto be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
