Iubilate
Laden as they were with plastic bags
of all the usual crap they harvested
and carted home, enmazed
within the polished, repetitious panes
of shop displays tricked up like sideshow mirrors
to proffer different selves,
not one amongst the weekend shoppers raised
their eyes beyond that retail paradise
into the vaulted space
above the Main Arcade, where one lone pane
of perspex near the Starbucks end revealed
a colouring of sky
unmired by moss, or weathering, or grime,
a rectangle of clarity restored
last Monday night in haste -
after he scaled the multistorey stairs
to summit on the walled perimeter
of Carpark Level Ten,
chanced a long breath, then with a look uncaught
on CCTV footage, slung himself
onto the cold spring day -
that sloped pane where an arching plummet touched
the margins of the closed-up shoppers’ world:
now glossed, immaculate,
as though a fleet of ghostly seraphim
had trailed his fall with bitter iubilates
and now were sealed below
to buff forever with their panicked wings
that glassy surface, trying to regain
the endless, perfect blue.
