Rose Pink Flamingo Flurries Over Africa

[on Nikolai Gumilev, a brief cadenza-]

Rose pink flamingo flurries over Africa

he might have seen, if he had lived

a son grown taller, deeper, not displaced-

still not following Anna anyway perhaps

at times repeating what he said before

oh, you should take up the ballet

returning later to find fresh fairytale scraps

bound up in no ribbons, scattered on the floor

and changeling, the tawny glints in cloisonne

jeweled combs that weren't there before o

trist bisque doll with the books all sold

and very little left; in a ragged shawl she might

have been, still adorned with red roses fading into

old silk but

she's no longer home, the one he left in worn down

slippers floated  a queen slightly foreign to him

a girl who wept flowers and stars

at the least provocation.

singing.

Africa, he sighed and was off again.

how would her verse have altered-

if he had lived- with so much absence,

so much more, filling up with snows

and Mandelstam, the same-

still haunted, haunting the pavements where

they used to roam watching the Neva in the cold

fill up with raspberry lights, little clouds and poems

commemorating in advance

the later lamentations

unaccountable joy

mary angela douglas 26 January 2014