Cleaning The Heart

In the afternoon sunlight at St James’s Park
she is on the top rung of a pair of steps cleaning a big
dark heart. And it has everything in it, this heart. Twice.
Even the coffee pot I brought back in hand luggage
that time, when such a thing was exotic, exciting,
more or less unknown. The coffee pot that blew up, in the end,
leaving its mark on the ceiling. That one.
Here it is, unthought of, unremembered,
she never even saw it, treacly, right here
in his big dark heart, which needs cleaning now,
front and back. Twice. Along with all its other cracks,
writ large, packed tight, here, in sunlight. His histories.
Which are our histories, some of them at least,
hands moving in darkness, his back, the rope,
the hammers and saws of a life, coffee.
Caught forever here in a heartbeat and wiped clean now,
restored in afternoon sunlight, the darkness shining, made good.
At last.