RICK BROWN

HIGHGATE

I might’ve known; in any case,
Katrina’s nothing but a breath,
a few puddles in the universe’s playground,
and my daughter ending her destiny
a less than pettiness
to all but us.
I’d suck the ink back in my pen
sell my labour as a railway clerk,
touch my cap to the boss,
to turn that round.
It’s tight in here.
My coffin’s like yours except
I didn’t build it.
That tightrope you’re on
as the rock melts
and frail as houses everything solid’s
nothing more than kettle vapour,
I walked it in my head
in a café in the cinquieme.
I was twenty-nine.
She was forty-three.
At three she could recite To be or not to be.
Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more.
What choice do you have ?
Gravity’s a law you can’t evade.
Your choices are inevitable
and your inevitabilities as chosen
as hers.