I remember my grandfather
reading his sun-paled
Psalter, his arthritic fingers
pitted with coal-dust and age, the first bloom of cancer
sweeter than new-mown hay
through the lingering smell
of whiskey
and Oxydol
– John Burnside, from
Erosion, published in the
London Review of Books
Three orange Francis Bacon paintings (Tate Gallery) described
here.