For Teddyboy

Here’s to a Clay Path

All that rain has gone to only topsoil
beneath the clay wants hacking blows
joking awful murder stories truth
lying shrouded in a car boot
shady at least so no want of air
blocking one last door that boy
showers clotting boot patterns
down by a metre it’s a terracotta jerk
friends and family phoning up
the whisky you bought staggering
blood-eyed and snotted round Foster plus
last night’s Bolognese and Choc Ripples
which knew what was going to come today
hum quietly to you while you take turns
like real plumber’s boys too out of body
to blubber any more Shakespeare
gravedigger jokes about terrible
ditches they’ve known young hoes
grip to plough on seeping air until you make
the call once more over with Charlie’s massive
pry bar and one scrape and endless fickle tidy
litter of him the scene from that film
Molière two steps up stairs one back down
all that routine that will not happen now
you hold one another for all eternity
cover him and fetch bluegum and Veronica
Kunzea and a yellow button Calocephalus
sit his bench and photograph her planting
fall towards the shed behind tool barrow
mulch a dreary mound against the very end of light
thoughts returning in this harvest glory
night not falling after all only thunderheads
now begin kind
you two walking paths around where he has gone
all flesh is clay is stone.