Matt
Gilbert

                    Always lacked the prehistoric charms of 

                    galleries next door, that picture, no relic bones, 

                    elk horns or colossal dragonflies. Unlike those 

                    chunks of unearthed fact, its world was one 

                    of surface, urging eyes away, only the woman 

                    at its heart resisted, assisted by a title, lent by 

                    Hardy: Our days were a joy and our paths through 

                    flowers. I didn’t understand, but I liked her dress, 

                    chic, black, next to graves, a human shadow

                    in a snooker-table landscape, daring me to stare. 

                    Slowly, depth emerged from green: yews, neat clipped,

                    low rounded headstones, wilder trees, crowding closer, 

                    small white flecks, on the legs of distant cows, all 

                    suspended in dry paint and time. And waiting, there, 

                    amongst the dead, the girl keeps on growing younger.