Gap

When you were there,
it was a time of two
and one.
In a sunny house
up on a hill.
So your mum,
called us Jack and Jill.
Which was simply,
how it was.
The tumbling down
was quick and shocking.

The empty socket
where you fitted
gaping, gutted, gone.
So much space
that I had doubts
about going on.
And in a sense I didn't,
that was some, numb
other who marked the days.
Who still drifts
around the wreck.
Too scared to say
it's unfair
that you're not there.

Lifetime

There was a moment
when it all made sense.
I could see my life
mapped out, like a farm
from the air.
I felt that the parts
were connected
and it was a body
of work that had
some history and
was enmeshed
in the community, here.
There was a feeling
of the larger whole
and I could see the
pathways radiating out.
Then it was gone and
I was back to the
feeling of unease,
waiting for something
that does not arrive.
Which is just life
the endlessly new
with no chance of review.
The effortless push into time
that starts to drag
once the flow is past us
and we move on.

Deconstruction

The digger crouches in the middle
of the crumbling buildings.
With precision and even delicacy it knocks down
and loads rubble that had been a workplace
into a truck, which takes it away
to become golf course
foundations.
And here am I at the fence
with my oldest friend
watching and commentating as
if it was cricket.
We talk of walls, loads and half
understood things our dads told us.
We criticise the digger driver
who's doing it all wrong.
And then it hits me,
like a freight train,
that this could be memory loss
we are watching and talk about.
The deft, telling blows
in just the right places
that the digger lands
to bring the edifice down.
The record of that place now gone.
A flat apron of concrete,
the only marker for a place
where people made ordinary history.
But the metaphor becomes unglued
because memories are organic
twining and twisting around the truth
gathering in stories and pictures
that are not ours, to the self.
Still it is close enough
to give me a chill as I remember my age.
So we leave and walk off quickly,
while the digger carries on.

Sliding

My Dad says "In the library,
I had a moment, when
it seemed that I was not there.
But I could see it all.
It was very quiet."
"You're slipping away" I think
but ask "Does it happen often?"
"No" he says "I wonder if I'm slipping
out of life, slowly"
How did he know what I thought?
So I say "It's the heat, or
what you're eating."
He knows I'm covering up,
an eyebrow is raised and he looks
sideways at me and says
"Yeah, it's nothing to worry about."
Which is how it is.
I am still not allowed to worry about him
it is all the other way.
Though I want to help,
he still sees it and me
as slightly ridiculous.
He is still my parent
and I'm his child.
There are some shared laughs
but his age group do not open up.
So this moment has left a mark on him
if he even mentions it to me.
He is half amused  and
thinks about what it means.
So I look at him and say
"You're worried by it?"
"No, it's nothing much. But
I'd rather not just slide away."

Career in Security

Did you see me in there?
The nice guy with the ready smile.
What about my part, my lines?
I said the right things at the right time?

The professional speak
which is almost satire now
random words jammed together,
the emperor's new clothes, for birds of a feather.

It is a double deception,
because I want this job.
But to lay it out so flat?
You'd never get anywhere, like that.

So I overlayed it with
the business of jargon
to stress the company's leading of the edge.
Cutting through the corporate hedge.

It's part of the process,
when joining the club.
Using the right words
to separate you from other herds.

And,  look, no broken bones
The phrases do no damage
I use them, they don't use me
The only loss is honesty.

Homing in

As it gets nearer
you relax.
The landscape
grows to
become your family.
The sigh of homecoming
escapes you and her.
For it is
your mother
who says the welcome
and tells the history now.
It  curls
and unfolds
around this body.
It weaves you
back in, taking
a marked place where
both ends of
the timeline
can be seen.
And the time
when there
will be a gap.
When the land
will enfold you again.

Warming

I will remember you
wrapping yourself,
around the shards
of ice
in your heart.
Because they were
solid and something
to hold on to.
From the mess
he had made of
your life.
When he lied and
left you and
left me too.
Because he was
not the person
we had thought
he was.
There was silence
for a time.
After that you rang
and we had coffee
where you said "It's over,
I'm done"
And your smile,
lit me up from inside.