Suits

In shopper's aisle, without a head,

he lies suited under haberdashery;

straight as pin-stripes, immaculate

from flat lapels to bladed trouser crease.

A floor assistant, paramedic-like

in kneeling aid, assails his heels

with ill-fitting unforgiving brogues;

till flustered florid face, and wrench

of levered wrists, cartoons the moment

when stage magician, slicing in two

some supine body, boxed and paired

to gasps of incredulity, dismembers

legs and waist from perfect threads:

the single-breasted, tailored Torso

is Romanesque, an ancient god of Saville Row.

No less absurd that time I lay,

if not top hat and tailed, suited

for occasional wear and soaked in night-caps;

your voices down the hall undaunted,

plying still the fuelled night,

and me surfeit-spilled athwart the bed

"Like a funeral corpse," you said.

No less absurd that first day at work

impressing unknown peers, dry-cleaned,

and starched to top-buttons, cuff-linked,

designer trussed, polished like an army boot:

"You'll know tomorrow not to wear a suit."

No less absurd, in other bedroom morgues,

the suited dead; and someone laughing

unseen from where the mourners gather

intoning prayers : a schoolboy's stifle

dispels the reverential air for a father

better dressed in death than in life.