What slender lines the river seems to hold
Flashing past on my way home
From home
Vermeered yellow patch this landscape less than whole
The snow at Cogne
Our fortunes in the bar foretold
Cycling to school the houses rushed past
Declan laughing at Janet and John books
Fingers stained with ink
Dungeon and Dragons our world
The chain off greased back at just past Kings Park
Pushing back on the cog with greased fingers cold
Discovering and losing so much
The salt on the wind
The decay of childhood into silences
Trying to keep hold of the sofa nap
Wanting so much to know
Making love and trying to keep
The feeling within and the women that i hold
Then
My children bounce on my bed to play
And after seconds they take themselves away
My sister’s life in mine the memory dissolves
Our lives as fleeting as this view
His clothes we bagged up and they sat alone
Airless, preserved
The twine unravelling over time
The memory of him
Slowly frayed
Grief decomposes over time
In sorting out a damp basement
The bags uncovered
Ripped plastics, his jacket spilled out
In part now rotten with damp
As surely as his corpse was made
Into nothingness before heaven
I cannot put his body back into these suits and coats
I cannot clasp now the sounds he made
The final stage of death
When new grief replaces old
His death displaced
His cuffs, his sleeves, his trousers legs
Somehow, betrayed by time
The darkness comes
When I am all alone
I look for something to hold onto
Finally, I find you
Dadhood 