Pioneers

Shot in the back of the head that Fourth of July

Your memories only went speeding back, so many miles

In wagon trains

Before they reached the sea

A coast on which you stood,

Speechless

Facing the Atlantic,

Stars and stripes

Rapidly cycling backwards into a history of cameras

Devolving from digital to Instamatic to daguerreotype

Gradually, and in split seconds

The disappearing bathing suit of a bombshell on a pen

Sucked back into her body

The subsequent 1000 odd color photos of the rest of your

life

Drained like swimming pools.

You are dead now,

And no longer British.

The extra U in your spelling

Goes clattering down the cold marble passages of your

Throat, like a horseshoe

And comes to rest

At the bottom of an empty swimming pool.