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.