{ Maura Dooley: Dulwich Picture Gallery Through a Veil of Tears. }

[delga]

Dulwich Picture Gallery Through a Veil of Tears
by Maura Dooley

Not a valley exactly, more the morose plains of south London,
the snow masked our way and the tears that coursed your face
       constant,
unstemmed, unremarked through your ache of missing her missing
       her
made everything muted, padded, watery-white, made this life as
       nothing,

which left us art. The lights were necessarily dim, the glass present
       if non-reflective,
so we were unable to see just how it was done, were there pencil
      marks?
Your swimming vision may have added something to the conviction,
and I, too brimful of you and your lack of her, felt grateful just to
       believe in it.

When we stepped from the carefully measured warmth back into
       January air
to find our tracks covered completely, nothing behind us, the road
       ahead a blank,
the engine cold, we shivered together. Then pulling onto the road
       in those moments
before headlights are needed, I lit a cigarette for you, something else
       you’d given up.