The Primeval

Was it a distant cry of a child I heard?
it evoked an equally remote memory
of another child’s wail.
The body in, the bay is your dad’s.

The school yards is empty and cold as
the sea. The bullies have gone home and
the afternoon sun paints unyielding
windows reddish-purple.

Don’t go home yet. Your mother cries
relatives eat shop bought sandwiches;
whispers. I will stay here for a while
and listen to the silence.