Until

I hear otherwise

I will take it

you agree
until

I am pulled up

by a liveried messenger

or a sock full of stones
I will carry on

as before

pinning crumpled maps to your face

the minutes of ghostly meetings
hushed litanies

of the shattered and misplaced

of squandered opportunities

with the life-span of a quark
until

I hear otherwise

I will use your face

this way
quite innocently, you understand

I harbour no illusions

merely quatrains

and the sullen metre of the dead
whispering: so, poet, what do you see there now?