A Hole

As the crowd assembles

a man in a bowler announces that the time has come

and the angels of the shore drift up and down.

Soon it will rain, and the crowd, two by two

will be called to cross the village green.

They’ll pass beside the butcher’s shop

and wave sad kerchiefs to the hanging pigs.

When they come to the sea, up the gangplank they’ll flow

into the rusted ironclad, each feeling happy now

since this must signal the arrival of the end—

as if between tomorrow and yesterday

were not the day they’re living in.

The procession past, the last will come, the slowest one.

With her cane she’ll tap the gangplank

as if testing ice on a frozen lake.

The last is Gladys, whom I have come to love

she who in the future says, “Ah, that—

That was hardly the end.”