my mother in law
lies on a gurney in a corridor
waiting for a bed
a limbo
between treatment and death
either way
the corridor clears
for the next contestant

angels dance in the inferno
of creativity
untouched by it's heat
just illuminated in flame
while I stumble through
a forest
with trees I couldn't bring
to life on a page
but Blake in his divine
madness
saw angels in the branches

my daughter wants a lift from work
she pays me with frangipanes and pasties
and tubes of sour cream Pringles
(half eaten)
my wife sleeps on the sofa
annoyed
I woke her to say I'm nicking her car
'cause the air con works
(mine doesn't)
dad is in the capable hands of the
undertaker
who are looking after him in the meantime
while I get documents and certificates
to say he died
but none say I was there
none say how much I hurt INSIDE
or how hard it is to pick up the keys
and give my own daughter
a lift home
(from round the corner)
as though it were any other day

I want to draw
what is in my heart
cathartic pictures
screaming the pain I feel
but I have neither the talent
nor the ink to express
all the skulls I see
dancing in the subset

The morning after
we told my mother
she would become
a first-time grandmother,

she sat alone in the garden
relaxing in the early morning sun,
craned her neck up at the huge tree
and spied a feisty pair of magpies

flitting about in a figure 8 — they squawked
out their monastic chants with abandon,
guarded their muddied little nest
tucked away in the groove

of a high branch. She froze,
eyes wide in a bewildered trance
as she suddenly recalled her own
mother so long ago, behind her

braiding my mother's thick hair,
her gentle voice murmuring about
the songs of magpies symbolizing
good news when you need it the most

My mother's smile was tremulous as she sat
in her garden, shrouded by the sweet incense
of memory, palms pressed together to ponder
all the ways we press on towards the light

we encourage them
to carry on
as though the party
isn't over and everyone
that matters hasn't
already gone