Dear Jason. Please forgive me for the news
that I must jab you in the eyeball with.
I hope it doesn’t leave a bloodshot bruise.
I hope that you’ll still sing and fight and live.
Your woman’s not one month among the angels.
Your heart is not four weeks scraped off the road.
Your brain is battered by the ever-changeful
whims of Fate. Not thirty tears have flowed.
The coming months will fill your soul with poison.
The coming months will nail you to the floor.
Your eyes will choke and sweep a blank horizon.
Each leverage out of bed will be a chore.
You need a horse to help you pull the plough,
you need a cloth to wipe your sweat-soaked brow.
But I must leave you now,
because I’m tethered to a dying tree
and England has no knife to cut me free.
