F) Portrait of the Artist as a Mince Pie

Portrait of the Artist as a Mince Pie

The snow happened at 11.13
and I felt that pieces of you were
falling around my car, like a

tickatape parade, like a goosefeather
badweather goodbye, a fistful of ice
blown like a kiss from the sky.

The farms and canals which you
had unrapped from their cellophane
gradually frosting the sheep as the

dust settled into their hollows and
corners, stroking the fields asleep;
this icing sugar, so much a part of

you, on your lips as a prayer, powdering
my journey, obscuring my view,
those tiny, chilly particles of you