Margaret Atwood - The Age of Lead lyrics

The man has been buried for a
Hundred and fifty years they
Dug a hole in the frozen
Gravel, deep into the permafrost
And put him down there so the wolves couldn't
Get to him or that is the speculation
When they dug the hole the permafrost
Was exposed to the air
Which was warmer this
Made the permafrost melt but it froze again
After the man was covered up
So that when he was brought to
The surface he was completely enclosed
In ice they took
The lid off the coffin and it was like
Those maraschino cherries you used
To freeze in ice-cube
Trays for fancy tropical drinks:
A vague shape, looming through a solid cloud
Then they melted the ice and
He came to light he


Is almost the same as when he was buried the
Freezing water has pushed his lips
Away from his teeth
Into an astonished snarl, and
He's a beige colour, like a gravy stain on
Linen, instead of pink, but everything is
Still there he even has eyeballs
Except that they aren't white but
The light brown of
Milky tea with these tea-stained eyes
He regards Jane: an indecipherable
Gaze, innocent, ferocious, amazed
But contemplative
Like a werewolf meditating
Caught in a flash of lightning at the
Exact split-second of his tumultuous change

Jane doesn't watch very much television
She used to watch it
More she used to watch comedy
Series, in the evenings
And when she was a student at university she
Would watch afternoon soaps about
Hospitals and rich people, as a way of
Procrastinating for a while, not
So long ago, she would
Watch the evening news
Taking in the disasters with her
Feet tucked up on
The chesterfield, a throw rug over her legs
Drinking a hot milk and rum to relax before
Bed it was all a form of escape
But what you can see on the
Television, at whatever time of day
Is edging too close
To her own life though in her life
Nothing stays put in those tidy compartments
Comedy here, seedy romance and
Sentimental tears there
Accidents and violent deaths in
Thirty-second clips they call
Bites, as if they are chocolate bars in
Her life, everything is mixed together laugh
I thought I'd die, Vincent used to say, a
Very long time ago
In a voice imitating the banality of
Mothers and that's how it's
Getting to be so when she
Flicks on the television these
Days, she flicks it off again soon enough
Even the commercials, with
Their surreal dailiness, are beginning
To look sinister, to suggest
Meanings behind themselves
Behind their facade of
Cleanliness, lusciousness, health
Power and speed tonight she leaves the
Television on, because
What she is seeing is so unlike what
She usually sees there is nothing
Sinister behind this image of the frozen
Man it is entirely it'self what
You see is what you gets, as Vincent
Also used to say, crossing his eyes
Baring his
Teeth at one side, pushing his nose into
A horror-movie snout although it never was
With him

The man they've dug up and melted
Was a young man or
Still is: it's difficult to know
What tense should be applied to him
He is so insistently present
Despite the distortions
Caused by the ice and the
Emaciation of his illness, you can see his
Youthfulness, the absence of toughening
Of wear according to
The dates painted carefully
Onto his name-plate
He was only twenty years old his name
Was John Torrington he was, or is, a sailor
A seaman he
Wasn't an able-bodied seaman though he
Was a petty officer
One of those marginally in command
Being in command has
Little to do with the ableness of the body
He was one of the first to die that
Is why he got a coffin and a
Metal name-plate
And a deep hole in the permafrost
- because they still had the energy, and
The piety, for such things
That early there would
Have been a burial service read over him
And prayers as time went on and became
Nebulous and things did not get better
They must have kept the
Energy for themselves and
Also the prayers the prayers
Would have ceased
To be routine and become desperate
And then hopeless the
Later dead ones got cairns of piled stones
And the much later ones not even that they
Ended up as bones, and
As the soles of boots
And the occasional button, sprinkled
Over the frozen stony treeless relentless
Ground in a trail heading
South it was like the trails in fairy tales
Of breadcrumbs or seeds or white stones
But in this case nothing had sprouted or lit
Up in the moonlight
Forming a miraculous pathway to
Life no rescuers
Had followed it took ten years before
Anyone knew even the barest beginnings of
What had been happening to them
All of them together were the
Franklin Expedition jane has
Seldom paid much attention to
History except when
It has overlapped with her
Knowledge of antique furniture
And real estate- '19th C pine harvest table'
Or 'prime location georgian centre hall
Impeccable reno' - but she
Knows what the Franklin
Expedition was the two ships with their
Bad-luck names have been on
Stamps - the Terror
The Erebus also she took it in school
Along with a lot of other doomed expeditions
Not many of those explorers seemed to
Have come out of it very well they
Were always getting scurvy or lost
What the Franklin Expedition was looking
For was the North­west Passage, an
Open seaway across the top of
The Arctic, so people, merchants
Could get to India from England
Without going all the way
Around South America they wanted to
Go that way because it would cost less
And increase their profit's this was
Much less exotic than
Marco Polo or the headwaters of the Nile
Nevertheless, the idea of
Exploration appealed to her then: to get
Onto a boat and just
Go somewhere, somewhere mapless
Off into the unknown to launch
Yourself into fright to find
Things out there was something
Daring and noble about
It, despite all of the losses and failures
Or perhaps because of them it was
Like having sex in high school, in
Those days before the Pill
Even if you took precautions if
You were a girl, that is if
You were a boy, for whom such
A risk was fairly minimal
You had to do other things: things
With weapons or large amounts
Of alcohol, or high-speed vehicles, which at
Her suburban Toronto high school
Back then at the beginning of
The sixties, meant switchblades, beer
And drag races down the main
Streets on Saturday nights
Now, gazing at the television
As the lozenge of
Ice gradually melts and the outline of
The young sailor's body clears and sharpens
Jane remembers Vincent, sixteen and
With-more hair then
Quirking one eyebrow and lifting his
Lip in a mock sneer
And saying, 'Franklin, my dear
I don't give a damn'
He said it loud enough to be heard
But the history teacher ignored him
Not knowing what else to do it was
Hard for the teachers to
Keep Vincent in line
Because he never seemed to be afraid of
Anything that might happen to him
He was hollow-eyed even then he frequently
Looked as if he'd been up
All night even then he resembled
A very young old man, or
Else a dissipated child the dark circles
Under his eyes were the ancient
Part, but when he smiled he
Had lovely small white teeth
Like the magazine ads for
Baby foods he made fun of everything
And was adored he wasn't adored the way
Other boys were adored
Those boys with surly lower lips and greased
Hair and a studied air of smouldering
Menace he was adored like a
Pet not a dog, but a cat
He went where he liked
And nobody owned him nobody called him Vince
Strangely enough
Jane's mother approved of him
She didn't usually
Approve of the boys Jane went out
With maybe she approved of him because
It was obvious to her that
No bad results would follow from Jane's going
Out with him no heartaches, no heaviness
Nothing burdensome none of what
She called consequences
Consequences: the weightiness of the body
The growing flesh
Hauled around like a bundle
The tiny frill-framed goblin
Head in the carriage babies and marriage
In that order this was how she understood
Men and their furtive
Fumbling, threatening desires
Because Jane herself had been a consequence
She had been a mistake, she had been a
War baby she had been a crime that
Had needed to be paid for, over and over
By the time she was sixteen
Jane had heard enough about this to last
Her several lifetimes in her mother's account
Of the way things were
You were young briefly and then you
Fell you plummeted downwards like
A ripe apple and
Hit the ground with a squash you
Fell, and everything about you fell too you
Got fallen arches and a fallen womb
And your hair and teeth fell out
That's what having a baby
Did to you it subjected you
To the force of gravity
This is how she remembers her mother, still:
In terms of a pendulous, drooping
Wilting motion her sagging
Breasts, the downturned lines around
Her mouth jane conjures
Her up: there she is, as usual, sitting
At the kitchen table with a
Cup of cooling tea
Exhausted after her job clerking
At Eaton's department
Store, standing upright all day
Behind the jewellery counter
With her bum stuffed into a girdle
And her swelling feet crammed
Into the mandatory medium heeled
Shoes, smiling her envious
Disapproving smile at the spoiled
Customers who turned up
Their noses at pieces of
Glittering junk she herself
Could never afford to buy
Jane's mother, sighs, picks at
The canned spaghetti Jane has heated
Up for her silent words wait out of her
Like stale talcum powder:
What can you expect, always a statement
Never a question jane tries at this
Distance for pity, but comes up with none
As for Jane's father, he'd run away
From home when Jane was five
Leaving her mother
In the lurch that's what her mother called
It - 'running away from home', as
If he'd been an irresponsible child money
Arrived from time to time, but that was
The sum total of his contribution to family
Life jane resented him for it
But she didn't blame him her
Mother inspired in almost
Everyone who encountered her a
Vicious desire for escape
Jane and Vincent would sit out in
The cramped backyard of Jane's house
Which was one of the
Squinty-windowed little stuccoed
Wartime bungalows at the bottom of the
Hill at the top of the
Hill were the richer houses, and the richer
People: the girls who
Owned cashmere sweaters
At least one of them, instead of
The orlon and lambswool so familiar
To Jane vincent lived about
Halfway up the hill he still had a father
In theory they would sit against the back
Fence, near the spindly cosmos flowers
That passed for a garden, as far away
From the house it'self as they could
Get they would drink gin
Decanted by Vincent from his father's liquor
Hoard and smuggled in an old
Military pocket flask he'd
Picked up somewhere
They would imitate their mothers
'I pinch and scrape and I work
My fingers to the bone
And what thanks do I get?' Vincent would say
Peevishly 'No help from you
Sonny Boy you're just like
Your father free as the birds, out all night
Do as you like and you don't care one pin
About anyone else's feelings now
Take out that garbage'
'It's love that does it to
You, ' Jane would reply, in
The resigned ponderous voice of her
Mother 'You wait and see
My girl one of these days
You'll come down off your devil may-care
High horse' As Jane said this, and even
Though she was making fun, she could
Picture Love, with a capital L, descending
Out of the sky towards her like
A huge foot her mother's life
Had been a disaster, but in her
Own view an inevitable disaster
As in songs and
Movies it was Love that was responsible
And in the face of Love, what
Could be done? Love was like a
Steamroller there was no avoiding it
It went over you and you came out flat
Jane's mother waited, fearfully
And uttering warnings
But with a sort of gloating relish for the
Same thing to happen to Jane every time
Jane went out with a new boy her
Mother inspected him as a potential agent
Of downfall she distrusted most of these boys
She distrusted their sulky, pulpy mouths
Their eyes half-closed in the updrifting
Smoke of their cigarettes, their slow
Sauntering manner of walking
Their clothing that was too tight, too full
Too full of their bodies they looked
This way even when
They weren't putting on the
Sulks and swaggers, when they
Were trying to appear bright-eyed and
Industrious and polite for
Jane's mother's benefit, saying goodbye
At the front door
Dressed in their shirts and ties
And their pressed heavy
Date suit's they couldn't help
The way they looked
The way they were they were
Helpless one kiss in
A dark corner would reduce
Them to speechlessness
They were sleep-walkers in their
Own liquid bodies jane
On the other hand was wide awake
Jane and Vincent did not exactly go out
Together instead they made fun of
Going out when the coast was clear
And Jane's mother wasn't home
Vincent would appear at the
Door with his face painted bright yellow
And Jane would put her bathrobe on back
To front and they would order
Chinese food and alarm the
Delivery boy and eat
Sitting cross legged on the floor, clumsily
With chopsticks or Vincent would turn up
In a threadbare thirty-year-old
Suit and a bowler hat and a cane
And Jane would rummage around
In the cupboard for
A discarded church-going hat of her mother's
With smashed
Cloth violets and a veil, and they
Would go downtown and walk around
Making loud remarks about the
Passers-by, pretending to be old, or poor
Or crazy
It was thoughtless and in bad taste
Which was what they both liked about it
Vincent took Jane to the graduation formal
And they picked out her dress
Together at one of the second
Hand clothing shops vincent frequented
Giggling at the shock and admiration
They hoped to cause
They hesitated between a flame-red
With falling-off sequins and
A backless hip hugging black with a plunge
Front, and chose the black, to go with Jane's
Hair vincent sent a
Poisonous-looking lime-green orchid
The colour of her eyes he said
And Jane painted her eyelids
And fingernails to match
Vincent wore white tie and tails, and
A top hat, all-frayed Sally-Ann issue
And ludicrously too large for him they
Tangoed around the gymnasium
Even though the music was
Not a tango, under the tissue paper flowers
Cutting a black swathe through
The sea of pastel
Tulle, unsmiling, projecting a
Corny sexual menace
Vincent with Jane's long pearl necklace
Clenched between his teeth
The applause was mostly for him
Because of the way
He was adored though mostly by the girls
Thinks Jane but he seemed
To be popular enough
Among the boys as well probably
He told them dirty jokes, in the proverbial
Locker room he knew enough of them
As he dipped Jane backwards
He dropped the pearls and whispered into her
Ear, 'No belts, no pins, no pads, no charing'
It was from an ad for tampons
But it was also their leitmotif it was
What they both wanted: freedom from
The world of mothers, the
World of precautions
The world of burdens and fate and
Heavy female constraints upon the
Flesh they wanted
A life without consequences until recently
They'd managed it
The scientists have melted the entire length
Of the young sailor now, at least
The upper layer of him they've been
Pouring warm water over him
Gently and patiently they don't want to
Thaw him too abruptly it's as
If John Torrington is asleep and they
Don't want to startle him
Now his feet have been revealed they're bare
And white rather than beige they look like
The feet of someone who's been
Walking on a cold floor
On a winter's day that is
The quality of the light
They reflect: winter sunlight
In early morning there is something
Intensely painful to Jane
About the absence of socks they could have
Left him his socks but maybe
The others needed them his big toes
Are tied together the man
Talking says this was to keep the
Body tidily packaged for burial, but
Jane is not convinced his arms
Are tied to his body
His ankles are tied together you do that when
You don't want a person walking around
This part is almost too much for Jane, it is
Too reminiscent she reaches for
The channel switcher, but luckily the show
(it is only a show, it’s only another show)
Changes to two of the historical experts
Analysing the clothing there's a close-up of
John Torrington's shirt
A simple high-collared
Pinstriped white and blue cotton, with
Mother of pearl buttons the stripes
Are a printed pattern
Rather than a woven one
Woven would have been more expensive the
Trousers are grey linen ah
Thinks Jane wardrobe she feels better: this
Is something she knows about she
Loves the solemnity, the reverence
With which the stripes and buttons are
Discussed an interest in the clothing
Of the present is frivolity
An interest in the clothing of the past is
Archaeology a point Vincent
Would have appreciated

After high school
Jane and Vincent both got scholarships to
University, although Vincent had appeared
To study less, and did better that summer
They did everything together
They got summer jobs at the same
Hamburger heaven, they went to
Movies together after work
Although Vincent never paid for
Jane they still
Occasionally dressed up in old
Clothes and went downtown
And pretended to be a weird couple
But it no longer felt careless and filled
With absurd invention it was beginning
To occur to them that they might
Conceivably end up looking like that
In her first year at university Jane
Stopped going out with other
Boys: she needed a part-time job
To help pay her way
And that and the schoolwork and
Vincent took up all her
Time she thought she might be in love with
Vincent she thought that maybe
They should make love, to
Find out she had never done such a thing
Entirely she had been too afraid of the
Untrustworthiness of men, of the gravity
Of love, too afraid of
Consequences she thought however
That she might trust Vincent
But things didn't go that way they held
Hands, but they didn't hug they hugged, but
They didn't pet they kissed, but they didn't
Neck vincent liked looking at her
But he liked it so much he
Would never close his eyes she
Would close hers and then open them
And there would be Vincent
His own eyes shining in the
Light from the streetlamp or the moon
Peering at her inquisitively as if waiting to
See what odd female thing she would do next
For his delighted amusement making love with
Vincent did not seem altogether possible
(Later, after she had flung herself into the
Current of opinion that had swollen
To a river by the late sixties
She no longer said 'making love'
She said 'having sex' but it amounted to the
Same thing you had sex
And love got made out of it
Whether you liked it or not
You woke up in bed or more likely on
A mattress, with an arm around you
And found yourself wondering what it might
Be like to keep on
Doing it at that point Jane
Would start looking at
Her watch she had no intention
Of being left in any
Lurches she would do the leaving
Herself and she did)
Jane and Vincent wandered off to different
Cities they wrote each other
Postcards jane did this and that
She ran a co-op food store in Vancouver
Did the financial stuff for
A diminutive theatre
In Montreal, acted as managing editor
For a small publisher
Ran the publicity for a dance company she had
A head for details and for addling up
Small sums - having to scrape her way
Through university had been instructive - and
Such jobs were often available
If you didn't demand
Much money for doing them jane could
See no reason to tie herself down, to
Make any sort of soul-stunting commitment
To anything or anyone it was the early
Seventies the old heavy women's world
Of girdles and precautions
And consequences had been swept
Away there were a
Lot of windows opening, a lot of doors you
Could look in, then you could go in
Then you could come out again
She lived with several men
But in each of the apartments
There were always cardboard
Boxes, belonging to her, that she never got
Around to unpacking just as well
Because it was that much easier to
Move out when she got
Past thirty she decided it might be
Nice to have a child, sometime
Later she tried to figure out a way
Of doing this without becoming a
Mother her own mother
Had moved to Florida, and
Sent rambling, grumbling letters
To which Jane did not often reply
Jane moved back to Toronto
And found it ten times
More interesting than when
She'd left it vincent was already there
He'd come back from Europe
Where he'd been studying film he'd opened
A design studio he and Jane
Met for lunch, and it was the same:
The same air of conspiracy between them
The same sense of
Their own potential for outrageousness they
Might still have been
Sitting in Jane's garden, beside
The cosmos flowers
Drinking forbidden gin and making fun
Jane found herself moving
In Vincent's circles
Or were they orbit's? Vincent knew a great
Many people, people of all kinds some were
Artists and some wanted to be, and some
Wanted to know the ones who were
Some had money to begin with
Some made money
They all spent it there was a lot
More talk about money, these days
Or among these people few of them
Knew how to manage it and
Jane found herself helping them out she
Developed a small business among
Them, handling their money she
Would gather it in, put it
Away safely for them, tell them
What they could spend, dole
Out an allowance she would note
With interest the things they
Bought, filing their receipted bills:
What furniture, what clothing, which
Objects they were delighted with their money
Enchanted with it
It was like milk and cookies for them
After school watching them
Play with their money, Jane
Felt responsible and indulgent, and a
Little matronly she store her
Own money carefully away
And eventually bought a townhouse with it
All this time she was with Vincent
More or less they’d tried being lovers
But had not made a success
Of it vincent had gone along
With this scheme because
Jane had wanted it, but he was elusive
He would not make declarations
What worked with other
Men did not work with him: appeals to
His protective instincts, pretences
At jealousy
Requests to remove stuck lids from jars sex
With him was more like a musical
Workout he couldn’t take it seriously, and
Accused her of being too solemn about it
She thought he might be gay
But was afraid to ask him she
Dreaded feeling irrelevant to him
Excluded it took them months to
Get back to normal

He was older now, they both were he
Had thinning temples and a widow’s peak
And his bright inquisitive eyes had
Receded even further into his
Head what went on between them continued
To look like a courtship, but
Was not one he was always
Bringing her things: a new
Peculiar food to eat, a
New grotesquery to see, a new piece of
Gossip, which he would present to her
With a sense of occasion
Like a flower she in her turn
Appreciated him it was like
A yogic exercise, appreciating Vincent it
Was like appreciating an anchovy
Or a stone he was not everyone’s taste

There’s a black-and-white print
On the television, then
Another: the nineteenth century’s
Version of it'self, in etchings
Sir John Franklin, older and fatter than Jane
Had supposed the Terror and the Erebus
Locked fast in the
Crush of the ice in the high Artic
A hundred and fifty years ago
It’s the dead of
Winter there is no sun at all, no moon
Only the rustling northern lights
Like electronic music
And the hard little stars

What did they do for love, on such a ship
At such a time?
Furtive solitary gropings, confused
And mournful dreams
The sublimation of novels the usual
Among those who have become solitary

Down in the hold
Surrounded by the creaking of the wooden
Hull and stale odours of men
Far too long enclosed
John Torrington lies dying he must have known
It you can see it on
His face he turns towards Jane his
Tea-coloured look a puzzled reproach

Who held his hand, who read to him
Who bought him water? Who, if anyone
Loved him? And what did they tell him
About whatever it was that was killing
Him? Consumption, brain fever, Original Sin
All those Victorian reasons
Which meant nothing and were
The wrong ones but they must have
Been comforting if you are dying
You want to know why

In the eighties
Things started to slide toronto was not so
Much fun any more there were
Too many people, too many poor people you
Could see them begging on the streets
Which were clogged with fumes and cars
The cheap artists studios were
Torn down or converted to coy
And upscale office space
The artists have migrated elsewhere whole
Streets were torn up or
Knocked down the air was
Full of windblown grit
People were dying they were dying too
Early one of Jane's clients
A man who owned an
Antique store, died almost overnight
Of bone cancer another
A woman who was an entertainment lawyer, was
Trying on a dress in the boutique and had
A heart attack she fell over and they
Called the ambulance, and she was dead on
Arrival a theatrical producer died of AIDS
And a photographer the lover of the
Photographer shot himself
Either out of grief or because he knew
He was next a friend of a
Friend died of emphysema, another
Of viral pneumonia, another
Of hepatitis picked up on
A tropical vacation, another
Of spinal meningitis it was as if they
Had been weakened by some mysterious agent
A thing like
A colourless gas, sadness and invisible
So that any germ that happened along could
Invade their bodies, take them over

Jane began to notice new items
The kind she'd once skimmed over saple groves
Dying of acid rain, hormones in the
Beef, mercury in the fish, pesticides in the
Vegetables, poison sprayed on the fruit
God knows what in the
Drinking water she subscribed
To a bottled spring water service and
Felt better for a few weeks, then read
In the paper that it wouldn't
Do her much good, because whatever it
Was had been seeping into everything each
Time you took a breath
You breathe some of it
In she thought about moving out of the
City, then read about toxic dumps
Radioactive
Waste, concealed here and there in the
Countryside and massed by the lush
Deceitful green of waving trees

Vincent had been dead for less than
A year he was not put
Into the permafrost or frozen in ice
He went into the necropolis
The only Toronto Cemetery of whose general
Ambience he approve he got flower bulbs
Planted on top of him, by Jane and others
Mostly by Jane right now John Torrington
Recently
Thawed after one hundred and fifty years
Probably looks better than Vincent

A week before Vincent's forty-third birthday
Jane went to see him in the hospital he
Was in for tests like fun he was
He was in for the unspeakable
The unknown he was in
For a mutated virus that didn't even have a
Name yet it was creeping up his spine
And when it reached his brain it would kill
Him it was not, as they said
Responding to treatment he was
In for the duration

It was quiet in his room
Wintry he laid packed in
Ice, for the pain a white sheet wrapped him
His white thin feet poked
Out the bottom of it they were
So pale and cold jane took
One look at him, laid out
On ice like a salmon, and began to cry

"Oh Vincent, " she said "What will I do
Without you?" This sounded awful
It sounded like Jane Vincent were making
Fun, of obsolete books, obsolete movies
Their obsolete mothers it also sounded
Selfish: here she was, worrying about
Herself and her future
When Vincent was the one who
Was sick, but it was true there would
Be a lot less to do, altogether
Without Vincent

Vincent gazed up at her the shadows under his
Eyes were cavernous "Lighten up, " he said
Not very loudly
Because he could not speak very loudly
Now by this time she was sitting down
Leaning forward she was holding one of his
Hands it was thin as the claw
Of the bird "Who says
I'm going to die?" He spent
A moment considering this
Revised it "You're right
" he said" They got me it
Was the Pod People from
Outer space they said
"all I want is your poddy"

Jane cried more it was worse because
He was trying to be funny
"But what is it?" she said
"Have they found out yet?"

Vincent smiled his ancient, jaunty smile
His smile of
Detachment, of amusement there were
His beautiful teeth
Juvenile as ever "Who knows?" he said "It
Must have been something I ate"

Jane sat with tears running down her
Face she felt desolate: left behind
Stranded their mothers had finally
Caught up to them
And been proven right there were consequences
After all but they were the consequences to
Things you didn't even know you’d done

The scientists are back on screen they are
Excited, their earnest mouths are twitching
You could almost call them joyful they
Know why John Torrington died
They know, at last
Why the Franklin Expedition went
So terribly wrong they've
Snipped off pieces of John Torrington, a
Fingernail, a lock of hair
They've run them through machines and
Come out with the answers

There is a shot of an old tin can
Although open to show the seam
It looks like a bomb
Casing a finger points: it was the tin cans
That did it, a new invention
Back then, a new technology
The ultimate defence
Against starvation and scurvy
The Franklin Expedition
Was excellently provisioned with tin cans
Stuffed full of meat and soup
And soldered together with
Lead the whole expedition got
Lead poisoning nobody
Knew it nobody could taste it
It invaded their bones, their
Lungs, their brains, weakening them
And confusing their thinking
So that at the end those that had not
Yet died in the ships set out in
An idiotic trek across the stony, icy ground
Pulling a
Lifeboat laden down with toothbrushes
Soap, handkerchiefs, and slippers
Useless pieces of junk when
They were found ten
Years later, they were skeletons
In tattered coats
Lying where they'd collapsed they'd been
Heading back towards the ships
It was what they been eating
That had killed them

Jane switches off the television and
Goes into her kitchen
– all-white, done over the year before last
The outmoded butcher-block counters from
The seventies torn out and carted away – to
Make herself some hot milk and rum
Then she decides against it she
Won't sleep anyway everything in here
Looks ownerless a toaster oven
So perfect for solo dining, the
Microwave for the vegetables, her
Espresso maker – they're sitting around
Waiting for her departure, for
This evening or forever, in order
To assume their final
Real appearances of purposeless
Objects adrift in
The physical world they might
As well be pieces of an
Exploded spaceship orbiting the moon
She thinks about Vincent's apartment
So carefully arranged
Filled with the beautiful or
Deliberately-ugly possessions he
Once loved she thinks about his
Closet, with it's quirky particular outfit's
Empty now of his arms
And legs it has all been broken up now, sold
Given away
Increasingly the sidewalk that runs
Past her house
Is cluttered with plastic drinking cups
Crumpled soft-drink cans
Used take­out plates she
Picks them up, clears them away
But they appear again overnight
Like a trail left by an army on
The march or by the fleeing residents
Of a city under bombardment
Discarding the objects that were
Once thought essential
But are now too heavy to carry