Why Must It Take So Long to Come?

Graham Greene's last words to his long-time companion Yvonne before slipping into a coma.

The excruciating boredom

A world farfelu        Hot-tangled like the sheets

    Yvonne yanks around me

The appalling strangeness          Galling need for synthesis

Vivien

Wants to come        She must be stopped

That family tableau            can wait

The fevered finger of guilt and superiority

    withers

        How many years

                    Since the torment

The lure of Catherine

The infinite distance

            Scent of cypress on Capri

Whiskey seeping from our pores

    Writhing in passion for God and sex

I was happy then

Christ himself close by now

            Disgusted with the fray

        Between the stirrup and the ground

The same

                    Another eternity