Bells and Other Sorrows, III

III.
There is magic in the world

Sixteen months and ten days
since I kissed those lips
and said my farewells
I have silenced the bell
muffled with the padding from
new nappies and warmed-up cereal
Babies born and begotten
while the world whiles away

Twenty miles from no-where
in a flat fenland November
I enter the door
turn to my left
to admire the view over the locks

but it's you I see
family-enfolded
framed in the window
picture-perfect
the padding falls from the bell
the sound is deafening

you look as if someone
just punched you in the stomach

My meal is pleasureless
the tomato soup tastes of tin
and the padding from new nappies

I meet you by the bathrooms
pretending to the final moment
that we didn't arrange it that way
greetings
heartfelt, bittersweet
In four days
I'll be an ocean away

There is magic in the world
but she is a black-hearted harlot