Watching while words die

We clung to that red umbrella
beneath grey northern skies,
still the rain came as a surprise
as it was snatched out of my hand.

I didn't see the bus coming
and you stepped on without turning,
my legs knew
what my mouth couldn't say,
so I watched inside the belly of the beast
as its windows digested you to the back seats.

The judder of a closing door
meant I was too late
to talk about the responsibility
I needed to take.

Standing there, a magicians assistant
we disappeared in a swirl of road spray,
sawn in half under October's
dripping branches.

Your mother called in November
just after the first flurries.
I imagined you with sunken eyes,
hospital white, blood spreading
into the snow from
between your thighs.

Winter was a frozen churchyard
where angry crows
shouted down to the dead,
echoes around crooked headstones
and all the sealed tombs
I know I should have said.