From “The Ghosts of Barnacullia”
October and the rain is warm
the light moving across the water’s surface
is there and not there
like a voice you remember
say your mother’s
youthful as once she was
on a day like this
embracing the sunshine breaking through
or watching it trace
between her fingertips so real
you can almost believe again in the silence
between you, her breath on your cheek
while you lay ill in bed
and in only a moment
a bell is ringing or your father
is singing in the kitchen about strangers
and without even an echo or the echo
of an echo all of this is gone and
we’re walking again to the Hellfire Club
or the Sugar Loaf, it’s Sunday
there’s not much traffic, and on the hills
as you run twigs, and small black pellets
are vanishing beneath your feet
