Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

Memoir II

Preparing for death is a wicker basket.
Elderly women know the road.

One grandmother worked in munitions, brown
bonnet, red stripe rampant. The other, a washerwoman:
letters from the Front would surface, tattered.

You must take the journey, ready or not.
The old, old stream of refugees: prams
of books and carts with parrots.

Meanwhile the speeches, speeches: interminable.
When the blood in your ears has time to dry: silence.

The angel will tie a golden ribbon to the basket’s rim.
You will disappear, then reappear, quite weightless.