Burial At Sea

Nobody came. Not even the horn-rimmed
woman he molested in his dreams.
Pissed, as usual, the crag in his father's suit
carried itself from pub to pub, belching
and howling in the street, pausing beneath
the stained glass recess of memory.
Pausing again, this time by the church,
he lobbed a bottle in full view of a local JP,
turned on his heels and brought himself down.
A care order was the only answer - a man
like that should be locked away.
The boy was the same - overgrown, backward.
Better off where he is.

Robes carefully folded in a supermarket bag
the priest stood on the pier - a lost soul
on a busman's holiday.
In the harbour working boats glided
across one another's bows with all the
elegance of a masquerade.
As the boy's mother arrived, in cognito, a dog
sniffed the urn but was warned away
just in time.