Pelt

Now rain rattled
the roof of my car
like holy water
on a coffin lid,
holy water and mud
landing with a thud

though as I listened
the uproar
faded to the stoniest
of silences . . . They piled
it on all day
till I gave way

to a contentment
I’d not felt in years,
not since that winter
I’d worn the world
against my skin,
worn it fur side in.

From One Thousand Things Worth Knowing. Reproduced with kind permission from Faber & Faber.

About Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon in Conversation with the Forward Prizes