Omens
by David Smedley


Packed into church pews like crows
pack power lines in winter,
everybody hunched forward in prayer
a black wave about to break.

Jesus stares down
from a stained glass window.
This is how I will remember you;
barefoot on the island of Ibiza
hair hanging to your shoulders,
a nimbus of light about your head
from the Mediterranean sunset.

As your casket is lowered
a cuckoo calls from the woods.
Your body was a nest
for a foreign egg.






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