Lazarus

We took leave of each other at the entrance to Trafalgar Square tube station. A casual wave of the hand and a smiling glance was all the ceremony…four days later he was dead.

Keith Vaughan, Journals 15th August 1940

My brother is rising again between the lions and fountains – a quiet man dazed by pigeons.

Water spills from the bronze snouts of dolphins, while summer crowds shift around him, as if breathing

is the simplest act. Ice-blue linen loosens at his shoulder, unravels, trails like a scarf.

He’s hauling himself free from the wreckage, onto pavements in the air’s cool relief.

Could there be some reluctance to return? Pigeons scatter – a blather of wings, with bellies and beaks. He sways

among them, source of their flight, each bird’s confusion a feather of panic that ascends, like his breath, into sky.