Jack Wright

To Those I Love

I found you because I wanted to

make you coffee on your layover,

to kiss you on the cheek goodnight

every night. The care I feel for you

is blistering. I can sense you in the farewell

bumps forming your name on my skin,

rising up like necessity. My star watches

you all succeed at whatever

you love to do with your time.

Your ribbed grey sweaters and dungarees

are enough to help me develop, thank you

for listening, for bringing in the silence.

I am here now.

I have learned the value

of your whole essence,

how a hand on my shoulder

loosens entire knots, my anti-

histamine. I sleep soundly

knowing you breathe this air

and slip into such delicate states.

He’d have loved you all. In my mind

he’s shaking hands and smiling

at the stories you tell him

about his son, your friend.

See? Now the room is turning red.

Driving Home from Queen’s Hospital

Under a blanket in the backseat of the car,

holding my mother’s outstretched hand, fingers

tracing her veins. The gentlest breaking

of rules, unbuckling my seatbelt to lie down

and cry. I am a fugitive being ferried

from one side of town to the other.

I know where we are by the turns,

the lengthening street light, bumps

in the road. Night pollen easing in

through the split in the window. 

Once These Hands Were Yours

From the hospital visits, everything I remember

is innocuous: foamy mattresses, light blue gowns.

I could never stop watching the backs of your hands

as you covered your eyes or sat up eating in bed.

I always assumed one should dig in the palms

for emphasis, buried like gold.

Last year I loved somebody I had only just met

at a house party. She held my wrist – her nails

were painted green – and she traced a capital ‘M’

along my palm lines. She told me

This means something. Do you see now

why I fell in love? As a teenager

the smallest things reminded me of visiting you.

School canteen lunch trays with subtly curved segments,

plastic cutlery, always white, between your fingers.

I would think of your arm hairs

watching a show about werewolves

or people who were convinced they were real;

the werewolves, I mean.

When you misunderstood me

I loved you like an oscillating sprinkler

on the hottest day of the year.

Now I find comfort in the thought

that before you started to forget your son

I made you laugh more than anybody.

The Funny Side

Death is a sequence that begins with dying, or a story

with different paths, like a children’s book.

I took a wrong turn back there and was snapped up

by a giant flesh-eating tortoise.

These things happen. Know they get easier.

A balloon has to inflate beyond its maximum capacity

before it goes pop. The whole room starts.

The balloon doesn’t have to be red, but it is here.

Everyone leaves, so I crawl inside

and now my world is red: the colour of closed eyes.

Death is a thick paperback of knock-knock jokes

propped up in a charity shop.

I was a child in a temporary place

working hard to amuse a giant

lying on an innerspring mattress.

I miss your lap, your arms. Bulk.

I miss you like dawn misses the moon:

by fractions. Seven days pass and still no one laughs.

Dandelion

So yes one thing had to go

to give life to the other

as dandelion seeds shed

like tears in mid-air

or maybe it’s that death

breeds love – say at funerals,

people get talking,

one thing leads to another –

and you hear these stories

surprisingly often

about grandad passing away

peacefully in the night

when at just the same moment

in a different ward

at another hospital

a son first takes breath, sobbing,

and it is as if newborns enter

this world in mourning.