Celestial bodies refuse to hold hands on their way to bereavement counselling by Caitlin Tina Jones

And why must everything be beneath you,

castaway lover? Skyline buffering in the heat, 

oil-paint-messy, orange light awash with orange 

trembling. You still there, beamstruck,

pale, beautified, stoic creature. The chaste spaces

between: gulls beating in the rafters, open-mouthed

and untouched; each train moaning like a yawning 

vent in the earth; August fever bringing the platform

to sizzle; sun-wet dogs dribbling in the close sear 

of day; and you wading in deep blue, refusing

to look. You     in forlorn, cloud-breaking stillness,

closing your milky-soft hands into their own little moons –