Memory Stairs
(Terry Kelly 1958-2016)
It’s not a constant ache, more longing,
email will suffice,
something bridging this gap.
I see your doppelganger
in a city street:
high forehead, eyes alert, searching
for the book no-one else will ever have.
I am calculating your age,
this or that year.
Your hair spreads,
lapping up and down on your brow,
the time escape me.
Some moments appear,
running down memory stairs,
fall apart with my heart.
I will not keep the review from ‘The Independent.’
It’s March and snow is up to my knees,
crossing the dene where it is deeper.
Auntie Bridget struggles into over-shoes,
has me hold her arm, wobbling down the path.
The rest is clanging bottles of oxygen. And you.
My mother screaming through papier-mache walls.
My memory is going into over-drive,
getting it all wrong.
You went over the handlebars and your curly locked head
danced to the ground.
Now I see you. Like our father,
on the day before your birthday.
Snow has gone,
only edges remain,
bacon rinds on an empty plate.
You would say Ian Hamilton would have pared this down
to a silver thread on a dark overcoat,
standing out so clear
like you today.
Tom Kelly is a Jarrow-born poet and playwright who lives further up the Tyne at Blaydon. His recent collection I Know Their Footsteps is published by Red Squirrel Press. This is his website: http://www.tomkelly.org.uk/