So over the border, soaring over it into the dark. The axle grinding in the wheel below your seat. The sea, huge, rolling down the coat somewhere out there to the left, swelling in its socket. A new country, invisible round the dim orange light of the bus moving through it, the roar of its engine, small firefly buzz between the vast darknesses. Different accents at the service stations giving you your change. All your money in small notes that you have to uncrumple out of your pockets each time. The the middle of the night again and the grass banks of the motorway, colourless.

Soon the house, with its shades drawn closed, will send
small carpets of lampglow
into the haze and the bay
will begin its loud heaving
and the pines, frayed finials
climbing the hill, will seem to graze
the dim cinders of heaven.
And my mother will stare into the starlanes,
the endless tunnels of nothing,
and as she gazes,
under the hour's spell,
she will think how we yield each night
to the soundless storms of decay
that tear at the folding flesh,
and she will not know
why she is here
or what she is a prisoner of
if not the conditions of love that brought her to this.

And though it was brief, and slight, and nothing
To have been held onto so long, I remember it,
As if it had come from within, one of the scenes
The mind sets for itself, night after night, only
To part from, quickly and without warning. Sunlight
Flooded the valley floor and blazed on the town's
Westward facing windows. The streets shimmered like rivers,
And trees, bushes, and clouds were caught in the spill,
And nothing was spared, not the couch we sat on,
Nor the rugs, nor our friends, staring off into space.
Everything drowned in the golden fire. Then Phillip
Put down his glass and said: 'This hand is just one
In an infinite series of hands. Imagine.'
And that was it. The evening dimmed and darkened
Until the western rim of the sky took on
The purple look of a bruise, and everyone stood
And said what a great sunset it had been. This was a while ago,
And it was remarkable, but something else happened then -