• Vol. 02
  • Chapter 12
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Echoes

I sit in your chair, wait for the echoes,
tales born of the pub, off small country roads
where you took no heed for the season’s clothes,
out walking as grey-filled heaven unloads.

‘I need to get wet to get wet,’ you’d say,
knowing it wasn’t rain that fell into
your cup: the beer: the whisky: sour bouquet
of hops and dregs, of congealed Irish stew.

When I was a crutch back to your doorstep,
the four walls told me how you had suffered,
but I was too young and too mute to help,
your red face shut me up: nothing offered.

We never talked together, never drank,
now I hear nothing, this old room a blank.

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