Glyn Wright
After the Siege
When I came back to look for my paintings
the old man said they’d made firewood of the frames.
When I went out to look for my relations
I found my brother just a shovelful down.
Beside me gasped a preacher with a spade,
and after I’d helped uncover his aunt
we eased those stiff limbs into coffins
and found two filthy diggers swigging hooch.
When one held out the bottle we stared at teeth
like mossy gravestones and shook our heads.
We raised the preacher’s coffin first,
diggers shouldering corners for a fee.
We marched the avenue of maple stumps,
lurched and swayed down rubbled roads,
but as we sweated on and on up
Old Cemetery Hill our legs began to give.
When the coffin lid was jolted open
one digger squeezed his nose and swallowed
what sounded like a laugh. Slipping on a muddy stone
the preacher hissed and slid to earth.
I couldn’t help the snigger as he glanced across.
We straightened faces, stared ahead, but when I turned
his thin face cracked; a vain hand slapped his mouth
as he roared through soiled and buckling fingers.
Page(s) 60
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