An attempted father-in-law
But tell me, how did you
die most often: lost
at sea, in a train crash?
Accounts and even
your name would vary
from year to year until
what with tale upon tale
of you spun by one
with only your staying
lost at heart
it must have seemed
the reasonable thing
Hysterical use of
the second-person:
it’s just a convention;
an elegy is a poem
involving an absence
drawn from life.
Reliquary of
guessed-at gestures
and a stage-set
of 70s Wishaw
assembled in the dark –
a milk bottle top’s
curled lip
moustachioed with ice
where the boots pass
in the morning,
the scoured doorstep
sunk at its centre
like a pillow
and soft enough
for the wee dog
unwoken by
The absent take
up so much more
space than the quick
selfishly expand
to fill any available
void we’d been
keeping for you
footballer soldier
shop steward
this train of thought
divides over three
countries in Glasgow
Belfast Burnley
a beau on a bike
ducked down a side-
street a Scotsman
at large with
a demobbed
squaddie’s bravado:
Erin go Bragh
fancy a sing-
along and A don’t
give a damn
tae whit place
ye belang.
A peewit over
Belfast Lough
tunes and untunes
a gibbering walkie-
talkie but who
is copying whom
a patrol’s headlights
return a cat’s eye-
lasers and in that
moment become
the hunted while
the peewit cries
tewit-weet-
weet-tew
Curious as to your
genetic make-up
skin tone freckles
and other small habits
propensity to whistle
or hum but lacking
a primary witness
we have explored
other avenues
and call in evidence
(we will know you
when we see him)
one as yet
in a warm darkness
whose line in
mimickry of you
All through the game I
see you now playing
at Parkhead
feet would be stamping
there would be no
hearing your own
name on the pitch
where you ran
for the one free space
ahead and rose for
the ball as though
jumping through hoops
i.m. Robert Canavan