From “The Ghosts of Barnacullia”

October and the rain is warm

the light moving across the water’s surface

is there and not there

like a voice you remember

say your mother’s

youthful as once she was

on a day like this

embracing the sunshine breaking through

or watching it trace

between her fingertips so real

you can almost believe again in the silence

between you, her breath on your cheek

while you lay ill in bed

and in only a moment

a bell is ringing or your father

is singing in the kitchen about strangers

and without even an echo or the echo

of an echo all of this is gone and

we’re walking again to the Hellfire Club

or the Sugar Loaf, it’s Sunday

there’s not much traffic, and on the hills

as you run twigs, and small black pellets

are vanishing beneath your feet