I’m here now, you can go
carried on along the water by the
lone fishing boat.
A penny for the journey, none
for my thoughts.
You know them all already, and
you’ve no need of them now.
The ferry-master knows my name, my face
will hear my voice in years to come.
I am not his yet, nor will be for some time
I hope.
He meets my eye, waves,
a friendlier figure than I once pictured:
The nine-to-five his defining characteristic.
This life is transient now, a collection of moments
I write, as if to share with you one day.
Sometimes the missing hurts so badly
I want to break it against the wall, but
this is what we mourners do:
scrunching our pains into aeroplanes,
watching as they spiral across the horizon and
disappear.
Why do I talk to you still?
You can’t hear me anymore. I am
damned if I look back, but
alone if I turn forward, drowning in the
grief of loss and love and loss and
filling in the cracks won’t work.
The water stills itself, a hand drawn
across an azure bedspread:
patting it smooth, a peace offering.
We turn away as the ferryman steers north,
the burden we carry lessened.
The world feels brighter, lighter, and
we stand, blinking like a newborn in its glare.
Photography by Isabella Baxter
