This poem is taken from PN Review 59, Volume 14 Number 3, January - February 1988.
Four PoemsCatacomb
A capuchin - long acquaintance with the dead
Has left him taciturn - stands guard
At gate and stairhead. Silent, he awaits
The coin we drop into his dish, and then
Withdraws to contemplation - though his eye
Glides with a marvellous economy sideways
Towards the stair. We descend and end up
In a corridor with no end in view: dead
Line the perspective left and right
Costumed for resurrection. The guidebook had not
lied
Or tidied the sight away - and yet
Eight thousand said, unseen, could scarcely mean
The silence throughout this city of the dead,
Street on street of it calling into question
That solidity the embalmer would counterfeit.
Mob-cap, cape, lace, stole and cowl,
...
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