A MARGINALLY LONGER POEM

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SNOW ON THE WINTER PALACE

I remember the hospital as a boarded-up Hermitage in winter
Set for our decorously private tragedy -
The wiping-out of a family

When you died the snow drifted wordlessly around
Its quiet lyricism recalling Russia
And a longstanding literary tradition

I loved snow
And as a facetious adolescent would place it
In a never-complete list of ‘Top Ten Things in the World’:

Music, girls, drugs, books, Eastenders - and snow
Trying to convey wittily
A democratic eclecticism

Now I can’t think of it
But a glacial nothingness
Shatters the nerves on the back of my neck