Marble Canvas

image from St Mary Magdalen's, Mortlake, London

Clear and cold. This morning Sir Richard Burton
lies on his slab where the light of morning
pours through a marble canvas. His wife lies
on a lower slab, and all around the pink-pearl dawn,
flushed, like milk with a little blood stirred in,
laps in, just as she planned it, just as she pictured it,
when he said “I don’t give a damn. Just
don’t put me in the dark.” He wanted to be
left in the desert or tossed into the sea, he had said:
but seeing the trouble on her Catholic face, he softened.
Anywhere, he said. Doesn’t matter. Just not dark.

in response to this Morning Porch post.