Landmark

Afterwards they were timeless
and they lay that way for a while before standing
and dressing, reclaiming their clothes

from the white-blossomed branches of the blackthorn tree.
And already they were part of things again:
his watch, her ear-rings, their clumsy shoes.

They noticed the telephone wires, the time,
even the broken rug of a long-dead sheep
folded at the bottom of the bank.

On going they stopped and turned to look back,
holding each other as if to let go would mean forever,
and they saw where they had been ---

a double shadow of green pressed grass, weight imprinted.
A sarcophagus, shallow among the long stems
and complete without them.