Watch her walk in, New England-smiled
and yew-tree proud, wrapped in daughters, fathers,
long-gone mothers,
egg-shelled families laying generations of quietly-worded traps.
Watch her leave, watch her head back toward the kitchen.
It's easy to be haunted.
Only pianos will do here, pianos
and a note-perfect ironic distance.
You know how funerals throw the cold water of your own mortality over you?
You know how churches dry your throat, make you want to cough?
You know how Paris seems stonier, greyer and more cemeterial,
yet somehow more determinedly alive than London?
None of that is true here, however much you want it to be.
It's easy to be haunted.
Only pianos will do here, pianos
and a note-perfect ironic distance.
Let's walk: down, down to the Borgesian museum,
come stare with me at the skeleton of Siamese twins,
each holding the other in an embrace that defies irony
and brings memories rushing like dogs.
The song of this place is Suzanne,
but not the old man's original, this is Francoise Hardy
and tu sais qu'elle est a moitie folle.
It's easy to be haunted.
Only pianos will do here, pianos
and a note-perfect ironic distance.
Maybe I'm half-crazy too: faces removed from skulls,
beautiful faces floating in formaldehyde,
are an exquisite science fiction.
The divinity that shapes our ends is stab-ruthless
and cut-harsh and luxuriates
in the aesthetics of buildings collapsing.
And violins, you finally realise, can be wine or vinegar.
It's easy to be haunted.
Only pianos will do here, pianos
and a note-perfect ironic distance