Clare Martin
When my friend buried her husband, she placed the sheet music
for Debussey’s Suite Bergamesque in the coffin
and tilted a takeaway cup of flat white beside the headstone.
When the Egyptians buried their dead, they painted the tomb walls
with mounds of figs, fish, terra cotta jars of beer.
Vikings lined their graves with knives, spindle whorls, keys, and bone combs,
Britons, with silver armlets, clay pots, heaps of amber beads.
Don’t go down into the utmost dark without something:
a doll carved from wood, a knife with an ivory handle,
a bunch of wild violets. Here, if you’ve got nothing better to hand, take this.
Clare Martin’s poetry has been published by or is forthcoming with the London Magazine, Presence, Tsuri-Doro, Kingfisher, Hedgerow, The Heron’s Nest, Blithe Spirit and Modern Haiku, among others. She is the Co-Director of St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. Clare lives in London, UK.
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