Somewhere to get to
The light is growing in the East
the headlights skim the road
that runs beside the flooded fields
we’re a month off blossom
when it comes I will drape
myself in the year’s renewal
and ask how many times
I will see my little yard bloom
the need to weed the gaps between
the paving slabs and wall
peg out my children’s clothes
and breathe in the warm cotton
the absence of the little bodies
from the house and the yard
calling to me from the cool
interiors of rooms where we live
our winter days are ending
and soon the plants will grow
and fill the empty patches
of earth and wood and field
my father would have been ninety
this spring and the birds would
sing to him as they sang to him
that foggy day he slipped away
and vanished over fences and walls
and kept going forever without
much to take with him on such
a distance that he undertook by foot
of course, he didn’t walk anywhere
but I don’t think that matters a deal
in the balance of things and truth
he went somewhere even if it was nowhere
really at all that could be mapped
or visited during the holidays
it has to be found in other ways
when the dead come to us in sleep
I can visit in my dreams, it is England
and there is a pub on a green
where we share a pint in the light
of a spring day and son, he says
son it’s alright and we got that pint
we promised ourselves under blossom
and ghost birds sing from ghost
branches and no ghost cars come past
to climb the green hill beyond the trees
we change gear instead and I return
to this little swaying train compartment,
that runs beside the mirrored sky
and I look at all the empty seats
that will slowly fill as we stop
at fenland towns to collect the living
who always have something to do
and somewhere they must get to.
Andrew McDonnell writes poetry and short fiction. The Somnambulist Cookbook was published by Salt, 2019. He lectures in English Literature and Creative Writing at University Centre Peterborough. A Creative Writing handbook, You Are The Writer – How to Write Working Class Experience is being published by Story Machine in 2025.