Duncan

Dancing to Stiff Little Fingers
with Duncan
leaping wildly, cavorting,
colliding. The last photograph
taken of him is at a party
in my home
the week before his death.

Sitting in a chair, wrapped and bound in wool,
a child's potty on his head, and a copy
of Playgirl open on his lap. Dead drunk,
dead to the world. Can of lager in hand.
That was the night I noticed blood in his ears.

How can you offer a mother a picture like that?
We didn't. Collecting money
from his mates in the Carlton pub
in Standish Street, we found a florist
who made a wreath. A replica of the illustration
from the centre of his favourite album,
Join Hands by Siouxsie and the Banshees.

His coffin was kept closed after all,
as his peacock tribe
of punk friends
gathered with his open-hearted family
at the crematorium
in Burnley, Lancashire.
Where for once only
the scratched copy of
the 23rd psalm
was outweighed by
SLF and Suspect Device.


(c) Liz Willows 2000