[Lyric] The Gas-poker (Thom Gunn)

Forty-eight years ago
- Can it be forty-eight
Since then? - they forced the door
Which she had barricaded
With a full bureau's weight
Lest anyone find, as they did
What she had blocked it for

She had blocked the doorway so
To keep the children out
In her red dressing-gown
She wrote notes, all night busy
Pushing the things about
Thinking till she was dizzy
Before she had lain down

The children went to and fro
On the harsh winter lawn
Repeating their lamеnt
A burden, to each other
In thе December dawn
Elder and younger brother
Till they knew what it meant
Knew all there was to know
Coming back off the grass
To the room of her release
They who had been her treasures
Knew to turn off the gas
Take the appropriate measures
Telephone the police

One image from the flow
Sticks in the stubborn mind:
A sort of backwards flute
The poker that she held up
Breathed from the holes aligned
Into her mouth till, filled up
By its music, she was mute