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?