The Key 

They all came for good reasons,
seeking comfort and solace in the grounds of the dead.
Drinking spirits or laying flowers, readers of poetry,
and the loners with mental disorders.
The dusk and psychology of keys swept them out onto hedgerows
you lock yourself in at the end of a watch,
It’s a way of controlling the living.
An early night on my way to drinking chocolate and toast.
The memory of a lock snapped
As a couple emerged on the wrong side of the gates.
Bathed in the street lights,
Solid as the stones they padded the gravel.
They didn’t look the type to be scrambling over spiked gates
It was still clasped when I caught sight of the metal.
They looked at home, late thirties comfortable in their silence.
Even ghosts have manners.
At a distance they seem to keep their focus
I watched till they disappeared
To the east side
hoping they’d vanish into nothing.
I questioned it the next day
And found they’d lost their young son
a car accident,
and between them, kept the key to his heart.