I love them. They bring a little antilife and uncolour
to the Corn Exchange on city centre shopping days,
as if they had all just crawled out of that Ringu well,
so many Sadakos in monochrome horror, dripping
silver jewellery down flea-market undead fashions.
They are the black that is always the new black;
their perfume lingers, freshly-turned-grave sweet.
Black sheep, they pilgrimage twice a year to Whitby
through our landscape of dissolved monastery and pit,
which they will toast in cider'n'blackcurrant, vegan blood.
They danse macabre at gigs like the Dracula Spectacula.
Next day, lovebitten and wincing in the light, they take
photographs of each other, hoping they won't develop.