Watcher, enfold with your cradled arms
          this aching corner of the world where
          the liminal is foraminal,
          more informal than other portals,
          a crevice more a small opening
          for animals than a door for souls,

as if here sometime before, lithe through
          its neglected keyhole’s cracked oval
          window passes lovesome darkness, all
          mournful of what was told in shadows
          on the pillows of a bed which was
          emptied after heretic gospels

were read but never understood, this
          tortured suitor which follows candles
          of loneliest breath extinguished by
          mist forcing its way in, in twists as
          a knife does, moonlit gossamer which
          slits with billowing silver chill wrists

of suicide-angled cobwebs as
          kerchiefs fall from lampshade heads, fills this
          hall till its lilting sonorous call
          enthrals emptiness to recall how
          well the Otherworld’s nude rumours once
          traveled, and how very far, before

they reached the pulpit here, and fell, as
          darkness now does, in this atmosphere
          where all stills to stiffness, only will
          darkness fill this place until you lift
          from its obscurity the spirit
          you anoint encircling death with life.