Three Poems

Funny the things I remember about you…
like the way you'd sit -
legs extended, ankles crossed -

the Golden Virginia tin
waiting, perched, almost purring, on your lap,

the lighter clasped in your hand,
held up towards the collar-bone

like a trophy, like a weapon -
your lips thinner when you smoked…

how you'd stand, gazing from the kitchen window
into the nothing and the everywhere and the always.

and how the advent of the parish priest
advancing down the terraced street

like a gunslinger riding into town
precariously symmetrical

on his microscopic moped,
...