Late for our own funerals, I hope, we’ll hang
About just down the road, sit in a pub
And wait till winter snows us out
To peace. On Christmas Eve, I lost my luck,
A yearsworth of mistakes, but felt like Christ aged 32,
Bought drinks by you, and still your friend;
No ever better presents, better past. At
Closing time, we wind our way from
Leith to London Street, and it is Christmas,
Xmas Day. Paradise is come in drifts,
Set pure. White crystal flowers, ours to pick and bring,
Yule’s silver bells for us to find and ring.

Some scars are trophies. Others lack the same improper pull.
There is a pulling power in memories that drags us like a current.
Soap operas have nothing on our story. Our glee evaporated faster
Than the condensation will as I undress my dreams before this mirror
And as I step under the water with my dinosaur ideas
The shower is a rhythm; it becomes that magic
Childhood tune, the saddest one with chords I couldn’t find
On a cracked guitar in Scotland one afternoon when you came home
With evidence you’d heard in bars and feelings you called scars
And tears like runny diamonds in your angry slate-grey eyes.