One For Robert Aickman

We moved here in June two years ago,

When the leaves were thick on the boughs

Of the oak tree in my neighbour’s garden.

The tree’s much older than the neighbourhood.

Maybe there was once a forest here,

Or a park belonging to great house that’s disappeared.

When winter came, I noticed the remains of an old tree house

High up in its bare branches. My neighbour took a long ladder

And pushed the pieces down with an old hockey stick.

This winter I saw the ruins of another ancient dwelling in the tree.

This time I was standing below when my neighbour went up the ladder.

He shouted, “Heads!” and showered me with fragments.

Scattered amongst the debris there were bones

And three human skulls. My neighbour came down the ladder

And poked about with his hockey stick. “Three this year,” he said.

“Most years there are only two. Once there were four.

Never one.” He picked up a little shinbone - “Children, you see” -

And put it in a nearby wheelbarrow.

We piled the other human remains into the wheelbarrow

And took them to a large shed at the bottom of the garden.

He opened the door and turned on the light. “Look,” he said.

On every wall there were shelves from floor to ceiling

And neat little piles of bones in rows on every shelf.

Each skull faced out, with forearms crossed in front,

And each collection - each child - was labelled: date and gender.

My neighbour’s lived there all his life - his father built the house.

“There’s not much else I can do, is there?” he said,

And I told him I thought he’d done everything he could.