13 bystanders

there are suitcases in my room

full of old photographs

packed and ready to go

i never want to see them again

2

the men who came to do the concreting

ripped out all my father’s boxing

he didn’t know that with an elephant truck

full of slurry

our driveway could be trumpeted in one

3

my mother’s engagement ring

with its four diamond twinkle

on the deciding finger of her nurse

to keep it or take it to a fence

or keep it

4

spending my inheritance

on this flight

as the greenarse gases

make life difficult for all of us

not in first class

unable to get up

or stretch

5

revisit my teacherly turn of the head

as i graded your story

and did not look back

at the stains on the sleeping bag

to see how they got there

and what you’d said

6

there are other ways to go

so please

let there be no nurse like me

who felt compelled

at that moment

to pinch the nose of the old dehydrated woman

the doctor said would die for refusing to drink

the junior — who was she? said what

are you thinking? and i stopped

7

when i’m tired

i look like my departed father

and now his late brother and sister visit

they say

in the apple orchard we were three

in the reading loft above the horses

in the farm kitchen

before you

before the war

before the bridge

we were three

8

on the death of my aunt’s husband

we insisted

she must have a new bed

and fearful of the scorn of the men

who came to carry away the old mattress

i said they held the last of her married life

with its king size holes

9

the tangled extra blankets on our winter bed

once belonged to my aunt

they are thin but with the tint of egg yolk

and when we sent the rest of her old linens

to the vet to be cut up

for animal protection

i kept them

10

this morning walk

i saw a shag with a lure stuck in its throat

the skua circling

it makes me think of the girl aged three

taken off by a soldier and seen minutes later

in the arms of the Commander

while at gunpoint her mother

was directed onto a bus

her child’s creased photograph

shown to us in close-up

by the Al Jazeera journalist

11

for an eternity

when i was young

i only read books by men

now i’ve turned on them

the page i mean

and only read women

in the contents of journals

i assess for women’s names

expecting the thud of feminine absence

while hoping

always

for an equal count

am i still missing out?

12

my mother is gone

but in death

laid straight

i noticed how always she was tall

13

the last time i spoke to my mum

she said

stay close

i might not be here next time you come