Michael’s poem, Funeral Kiss, appears in The Book of Love and Loss

There are numerous readings and ‘launches’ of this book happening in late 2014-2015 – watch out for them.

FUNERAL KISS

A custom, I thought, more honoured

in the breach than in the observance.

A custom for Russian presidents lying in state.

A custom for the bones of the beatified

whose very deadness might spark some life.

 

I wanted to isolate you in the privacy

of death and said No to Mrs Taetz,

our children’s carer, who asked to pay her respects

and No to Les Corness who asked

if he could take photographs of you dead.

 

I viewed you but didn’t want to kiss you.

I didn’t want to feel the Ding an sich of death

as if that final funeral kiss

might undo all those other kisses:

before, during, after, first, best.

 

And yet now I feel I should have kissed you,

a tiny peck perhaps, a tiny brush with death

to show I was your brave boy grown into a man.