Is what there is between a funeral and The Awful Truth
The bit where the dog . . .? Where Cary Grant . . .?

They dredge up out of your guts, those bits
Something like a body hauled from the river in nets

One that retches and sicks up mud, miraculously
Not drowned, though perch-coloured compared

To peach-eaters, one that feels gratitude as pain
As it warms again to ways unpractised in that place

A body that came back mouthing small bubbles but
Now extravagantly orders up so much air it sticks

Then must kick the voice-box to get a track –
A barked cross between a climax and a hard cough

A body clinging to cold-wrapping river weeds
A family of limbs and organs that aren’t speaking

A body shaken by laughter, that defibrillator
Shocking them, for a second, back together.