When the picture came through
As I sat in front of the fire, rain outside,
Thick bundles of crimson leaves and
Yellow grasses under the hidden
Sun of a cloudy west of Ireland sky,
When your face came through,
On the Group Chat we founded
When we all lived in London,
And you hadn’t married Kevin yet,
When seven of us would organise,
Who would cook and who would
Take the tubes and buses and Ubers
So we could sit together and try
To explain ourselves and the worlds
We encountered, reaching
Across some Jamie Oliver recipe,
Like chicken wrapped in filo pastry,
Which you loved, or one of Bec’s
Curries, daal, rice, my single dish
With the salmon and asparagus,
The wine from a lower self in Tesco,
When your picture came through
From home in Birmingham,
On a day I was letting slip,
Because I was here, and you so
Far away, when I saw your face,
Just after mum text to say it was
All Souls Day and I remembered
The story from Ireland about
How people used to set a table
For their ancestors, offer prayers,
Open doors and call them back,
In a ritual, a smudging of the line
Between the living and the dead,
When your picture came through,
And suddenly you were there,
So peaceful, your eyes closed,
Your being so inward I thought
You could be gone from me,
The child, his pink flesh so
New, so unflinchingly yours,
I saw something pass from you,
Fallen like a leaf, gone like the dead,
Into a small and breathing miracle.
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