Sally Read
The Death-Bell
(Orosei, Sardegna)
Again, my house reduced to one lit square,
lamp dipping defeatedly as the heater cranks back up.
My small co-ordinates: a glass of the good stuff
(so thick it’s black), a book, when the bell slams
back and forth. The muscular weight of that sally
dragging in the gong’s whale-like reluctance
and delay. Each bronze hit slugging out to the last
wave, till air’s congealed, struggling to swallow
sound. I’m prevailed upon: the night ploughed up;
the book a smooth palm in my lap; window
devoid of sky-scrapers, lights, diluting cars.
All minds marshalled to a stranger’s dying:
the awful struggle to still a heart that retches,
retches, long after the ghost’s given up by exhausted
wife and daughters. Well now, some muscle has wrung
out years, to silence. The air still smells of it.
But before we all relax, at ease, the bell starts up again
(blood seeped back to some upended arm)
and rung as if this random ringer is trying to beat
a shape out of a lumbering iron when he might as well
forge a horse-shoe from the sea.
Page(s) 56
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