A Couple, Two, Tree

I have a hunch that we're gonna die young

And grow old together in the next few years

I'd like to reclaim my accent, reinstate "henna"

Henna like "ain't it," henna interjecting Scranton

At the end of an otherwise placeless phrase.

The world's a wild thing, henna? Up here it's

Thrashing on it's axis and youse can't tell me

Youse have ever been colder, after spending 

Summer splayed on cotton sheets simmering.

I can see my breath for blocks now. Hanging.

I picture us on the porch in 20 years or this one

Ruminating on how short the autumn is here.

On how short everything always was.

In A Name

In a name, anyway, who'll pick me out from all

the other Matts, a biblical Matt, I've learned more

about Jesus from Wikipedia than in the 42 years since

my mum laid my Christening candle by my bed

and it's wild to me she speaks no more of God

and that I had to make my C of E mind up to see

that this was what made me English, not my name

nor the priests who taught my dad cricket and

tea and English, this candle that presumably 

ended up in my charge after I was named and

gathered dust by my clock radio for years

I'd look at it in wonder a candle not burning

did I finally gather courage to light it, what

was it lit for? Christmas? Easter? These things

existed to tell stories or a story and still I'm no 

closer to where my name came from or what it

is to give and name names.