an exchange

From: The Keats House, Rome.
Dear Mr Healy.
I have reserved the apartment for you on the dates required. Our terms are payment in advance through a credit transfer from your bank account.
Please advise us if your plans change.
Jane hobgoode.


From: The Chateau de Healy, Ireland
Dear Miss Hobgoode.
I am a little antsy about access to my bank account. In fact, no one gets near my bank account unless they first agree to marry me. I'm sending you on a poem instead. Surely between us Keatsians, no further security will be required.
James Healy


the cloak

mid the grey desolation
of a rainswept roman street
colour tore my vision
from dreariness and fret
a cloak of ebon silk
lay crumpled in the mud
meshed with silver hues
and ochre tainted gold
a spiders web of threads
sent blood among the sheen
woven so by fingers
with a knowledge that is gone
and knowing came upon me
in a drumroll of heartbeats
the lost cloak of poetry
the mantle of john keats
and hunger came upon me
i snatched at it in greed
but it fluttered
and it melted
into concrete
into clay