Kayo Chingonyi

For Roddy Lumsden

Fitting that the day should dawn
in this most Lumsdenesque of Lumsdenesque
contexts: sea-froth for night music
and the company of Suzannah —
kind enough to show me this walk
she knows without recourse to light.

When the hour came
‘Mr Brightside’ played it in
a song to which
________by dint of the glint
_______________in Sophie Barnard’s eye
_____________________twelve years ago
I cannot listen passively.

Which calls to mind the secret canticle
that undoes you, Roderick.
Maybe it is better some things
retain their mist
that all of us might carry a well of myth
in the pit of our pith,
maybe it is by such melodies we exist.