Bye For Now
Your repeated use of the phrase
at the end of emails
convinced me that we had a future
until I noticed that BBC
news readers and weather reporters
say it to sign themselves off
secure in the knowledge
that some percentage of the population
will still be there later on
even for the World Weatherview
at one o’clock in the morning
even if they’re dead in their armchairs
waiting to be discovered by the neighbours.
Lorraine Mariner’s collection, Furniture, will be published by Picador in April 2009. To buy Bye for Now, click here. Also see this. The Guardian site offers a few biographical details. Hear her read. Here’s one poem for my friend S., who told me about Mariner, with whom I’m already falling in love.
