I dreamt of smashed
fairylights.
Trying to weave through the shards
sparkling
piercing, it was night

but light outside.
The sheets tangled my limbs,

hot mind,
in little bits

Scrape it up.
Scrape me up.

You slept and
I crept
into that new room

And curled into the sleeping bag
Because it was crisp outside.
It wasn’t light yet.

And the ghosts on the bridge
didn’t know that I could see them.

Wrapped in your wool
with that will in your eye
She's firm but she's gentle
she loves you it hurts
breakfast eight sharp
then lunch at half-twelve
you come down for your tea
and the Angelus bells

We ran in bare feet over stones
and the thorns
that was cross-country running in
County Clare
I look at them now
sandaled and layered
your walking-frame
smiling in the glare

I can't understand your
need for the news
news is at eight, nine, ten
and eleven
lunchtime news
and more at seven
News at nine before you sleep
a paper a day and the radio beep

I know,
we grow
and you can't remember
if it's me or I'm her
or we're seventeen
You know that's it's raining and
there's war over there
so you hold on to that
but how much do you care?

It's not your fault.
your papery hands clasped
in your little lap
It's too fast
and it spins and it spins
and we are spinning away
I'm trying to hold on
to hold you
I help you up
I sit you down
I can't help with this
I'm sorry gran.

The boxes are piling against the door,
my clothes are strewn across the floor,
each fold holds the shadow of a time with you
every thread the touch of your skin
you smiled when I wore this dress

It lies balled up in a bag,
tight crumples,
violently creased

the creases,
and crumbles
and crying
I am wringing the tears from my heart
I am crying my love and it won't leave me
I am twisting it and it still will not tear
it sits in that bag
tightly crumpled.

My brain!
Oh my brain.

It's the words, the words I don't know,
it's my fingers that won't help.
I can't express,
like a mother's milk from her breast,
these words sour inside me,
because I don't know them

and I need them

My feelings will make me insane,
I will rip out my heart
and my brain
and this throat with a
******* lump so I can't even speak
Speak!
And even if I speak I can't connect the speak with the think
and the feelings slink in
and slide all over my brains
my brains
It's red and red
and blue
and grey
grey.

Here I lie where we once lay,
My thoughts my own,
and me
alone.

You once curled around my back
almost twice curled
I was so small in your arms
Your head against the curve of my neck

And me safe as safe,
soft, with you,
the protective shell.

I sit here alone.
My body clenched, coiled, with all this pain
All of you around me
And none of you truly there.

I press my hands against my arms,
trying to make my own shell,
but it just reminds me
of how yours used to feel.