What
Matters is the way we lived: you
tying the laces
on each school day, gripping the shoulders
of your bike
lest it move off alone and leave you
you on your hunkers by the kitchen
fire
performing surgery on the hoover
difficult and slack-heavy as a teenager
your
notebook copper-plated with the whole
Our Father, suppliers of discontinued
kitchen parts
and our impossibly distant addresses
then the last of
the picnics, Travels with a Donkey,
the sweet years turning over
and over
and you falling asleep as I read.
from Prince
Rupert’s Drop
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