Yet you have gone
to Nunnelly while the country
is deep in its minuses
and the nurses are dying.
Praise the day you tired
of crying every reply
and mesmerized feeling.
I reached out to your children, the one
in his humming
apartment who has
gleaned a raise. His hair
combed. He will take you
to Ireland when we are again
free to go. I found
your daughter
slipping around
streets with her palms
out for money or pills and a beach
nearby hollering
its rings of inattentive
water. She says she is scared.
To listen is to hear
what her body wants. A place
to shell while you
are in Nunnelly, which is a place I see
on the map mostly
cloudy today and a road
called Elliott. Are you getting
better? I want this pause
you are having
because here
we are in the midst
of the worst. Outside is
no cars
and no mothers.
A list of sad doorsteps.
Gesture and Omen
