The tink and hoo of the singing birds
draws you to a park of shining glass domes.
There between the ancient lawns
and the distant archipelagos of cloud,

is a pouring upward of the trees
that hides the secret summonings of birds.
And when their songs cut loose your sight
and light the silver candles in your head,

you’ll tiptoe down a shadow path
to the garden beneath an old tin lid,
where in a haven of murmuring green,
where no rivers flow or oceans swell,

a pale queen suckles a milk-white lamb,
her nipple like a rose in its hairy mouth,
while seething back and forth in a bobbing tide,
choirs of robins scream like drops of blood.

When mummy died, daddy married auntie.
She said she'd loved him from the very first
and since she'd known her sister inside out,
would make a fine new mum for us.
She'd even been there at the accident,
when mum was looking down at her new shoes
and didn't see the truck in time.

Once when auntie was cooking dinner,
she told us how pretty mum had been,
how men had always had an eye for her,
though she dressed too much in flirty stuff.
Then auntie took a package from the fridge,
and said that mum had made herself a shroud
when she was young, in preparation for her death.

Then she pulled away the white wrappings
and exposed the pale thighs and young breasts,
and filled the bird with sticky cherry.
Came in very handy that did, she said,
bending down with the roasting tin.
We put her in it for her cremation,
she really looked her best just then, she grinned,
as the oven door clicked shut.