The Blazing Hat, Part Two

This is the morning that we burnt a cardboard hat flames licking the inside of the brim This is the morning that the thunder hung like great black flags over the city stirred by gusts of wind This is the morning that they opened a new motorway leading from my house to yours This is the morning that I decided I wasn't getting enough roughage and went on a diet of broken milk bottles This is the morning that Death left her cloak behind after the party This is the morning that a beautiful schoolgirl woke me with a cup of coffee in a vision This is the morning that we saw words written on water This is the morning that beautiful girls with Renaissance faces played Hindemith records at dawn This is the morning after the night before This is the morning after the night had strewn Canning Street with purple toilet rolls This is the morning that we saw a q.­year­old boy whipping an imaginary blonde lovely This is the morning that Death was a letter that was never scented This is the morning that the poet reached out for the rolled­up Financial Times followed by a dreadful explosion This is the morning that you woke up 50 miles away seeing sunlight on the water and didn't think of me This is the morning that I bought 16 different kinds of artificial lilies­of­the­valley all of them smelling of you This is the morning that we sat and talked by the embers of the blazing hat.