On the pear tree at six
the blackbird speaks.

He talks of no creation
that we, translated to his garden

and looking back, could ever see. I go inside.
The back door has the same, jarring slide.

Again, against the quiet, I rage.
You sit, forever reading the same page

at the table just behind me.
You listen once more, patiently,

to my ideas of Time. The world ever Present;
Past and Future irredeemably absent;

this room a delusion – what is out of sight
simply chaos, juggling light …

‘Yes, love. But …’ I sit. In a moment I’ll turn,
and the past turn

with me, and you will not be there
nor will be, smiling into the darkening air.