Badtimes

Mostly words

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

New things from me this year

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

Useless.

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

[domconlon]

You’ve gone

and I don’t know how to remember you.

My words don’t care

they are lungs, breathing

your presence and absence equally

but my arm

is as weightless as an astronaut

my heartbeat

is sonar on an empty seabed

and my eyes

are rediscovering the horizon of coffee shops.

If only poetry

would leave me too.

[domconlon]

I bought tulips on the way

three bunches for six pounds

which left change for coffee

and the bus to see her

sat behind the empty glass

of our old house.

A hug, a smile and then the flowers

yellow like the sills used to be

red like the front step used to be

purple like her veins.

She took them unwrapped them

lowered them onto newspaper

as carefully as a baby on a mat.

You swaddle them, she said

when their heads start drooping.

We had lunch and then I left.

She nodded when I said

I’ll visit soon.

[domconlon]

Once, there were footprints in this garden

pressed flowers of time running along

the bookmark of the washing line.

Once, a small voice said please

as over the fence words were thrown

back and forth as often as the balls.

Once, the birds came to feed

tiny splinters of night

searching for the stars.

Once it was Summer

now half the land is unremembered

and the rest returns to haunt.

[domconlon]

[domconlon]