The church has gone.
There's now a block of flats 
where spinsters of the parish 
changed their hats 
for mortarboards 
and draped themselves in gowns, 
silencing choirboys’ whispers 
with their frowns; 
where altos, tenors,
bases, baritones 
sent seismic tremors 
through a young lad’s bones 
when hallelujah choruses 
reached heights 
he’d never known elsewhere, 
on practice nights.

He halts a moment—
sees her standing there, 
the choir mistress 
sculpting ice-cold air 
with chubby fingers,
making evensong 
more stimulating 
than the vicar’s long 
soporific sermons—
Then he shuffles on 
dribbling a snatch of Handel’s Largo. One 
more bastion of an old man's youth is down. 
A ghost, 
revisiting his native town.