Cornelius

He would throw off his donkey jacket,
And I would go and lie,
Wrapped in the rough, dark folds,
Smudged with plaster dust and paint stains,
I was two;
He was fifty, just lost his wife.

Years later; after the reconciliation,
We painted my first house together,
The walls were pale yellow,
Steeped in his stories of the old country,
I was eighteen;
He was retired, needed medication for his heart.

When he died, a year after his second wife,
We had to go and choose from his possessions,
I took his frail-paged prayer book,
A tartan, cashmere scarf and his old, copper kettle.