The Muse in Brighton

The beauty school on Brighton Lane

spills pink-smocked girls at twelve o’clock.

They blossom cigarettes and talk,

pluck lilacs from the parish green

and plant them in their hair for spring.

But the bells of St. Columbkille’s clang

and Brighton mourners dim the street,

with roses on the hearse’s seat

to take them to the grave.

And all the novice scissors stop,

and all the young beauticians hold

to see the rosewood in the cold

be taken to the grave.

Lady, in the flower I hear the bell

the green tongue tolls, and in the swell

of young girls’ breasts I hear the sound

that stills the city to the ground

and makes the shurring scissors shut

and stops the lover as he woos.

It’s death undying is our muse.