LIBERATION DAY

Dogs bark at clouds and magpies -
The eon smell of wisteria in the head -
I know my blood and yours and we can dance together
Listening to the afternoon’s glorious passing -
We are in thrall to sheaths and scythes -
The cities are open -
Dormice return to scatter wood in the eaves of farmhouses and eat lime -
It is bright where the Tiber narrows
And a million feet correct the day, alter the turn of the earth -
Swimmers aim delicately back to the monochrome;
Brylcreem faces smiling beneath jubilant bells -
As this occurs it cracks the shell-shocked, they repeat chants and prayers:

repose, repair, repeat: I am the living mark
of man made better by memory;
delicacy is my widow, she has seen the worst
of me corn fed on balconies spitting fury; now
corrupt earth and country are sweeter;
coffee is real again;
the old walk for buses not run from snipers;

and nightingales no longer myth -