Cornelius

 

He would throw off his donkey jacket

and I would go and lie

wrapped in the rough dark flods

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 choos from his possesions

I took his frail paged prayer book

A tartan cashmere scarf and his old copper kettle