CAT

I’m walking through the rooms of my dead body.
Light is escaping through the windows, rising
like coloured steam; by long accumulation
compressed into thick boards, but now by seconds
returning to the sun, untwisting from
the fibres of itself, accelerating
as it ascends, like leafsmoke when it climbs
into the wind, suddenly young again.
Patches of brickwork spreading show the pace
of the unbuilding – now whole summers flaking
from the high ceilings fall but falling, lighten,
and fly out of the windows. On a landing
two old officials sit, among the scuttling
of the disintegrating decorations,
and the oil paintings whose green leaves are falling;
they stare at chess, and have not heard, it seems,
and I can’t make them hear. The statue room
is almost empty. The last figures redden
and step down. Documents will be supplied,
and maps, and they will slip away disguised
over the border. Look – that sleepy-spry
cat curled up in the corner of your eye.