This year, no one will ask how you voted
Or of you know the way to town
No one will call you as an eyewitness
Or teach you how to train a bird of prey
No one will bring you your new Scientist
Try to sell you double glazing
Or tell you the secrets
People will write to you
But you won't answer their letters
The high sheriff of mistletoe will never catch your eye again
No one will peel apples for you
Or love you more than you can bear
No one will forget you

I wept in Tesco, Sainsburys and in Boots
Where they give me medicine for grief
But I wept in Asda, in Woolworths, and in the library
Where they give me books on grief
I wept in Clarks
Looking in vain for shoes that would stop me weeping
I wept on The Peace March
And all through the war
I wept in Superdrug
Where they give me free box of tissues
I wept in the churches
The empty empty churches
And in the House of Commence
They voted me out of office

I've lived with your death for a year
That despot death
That realist, stunned
As if I've just given birth to a foal
Or made an enemy of the rain
All at once you have more important things to live
Death is the feather in your cap
The source of your fame
My darkest lesson
This dropout year closes
I begin my second year without you
Just me and the paper-thin world