LUCY DOUGAN

The Journey

It was a time for
heads in laps
and the sound of the sea,
my hand on the back of a chair
you would never sit in any more.

I was told by the priest
to think of the view,
but there was not one drop
of air or water
that held your name.

To come home
and never come home again.
The first touch down,
first tank filled,
first fly-spotted bill-board on the way.

My one owned conviction
that you should be here
lost with the flash of each cats-eye.
Governments fall
and the innocent make their pitiful deals

with the rich.
As if you held the skein
of the world safe
without my knowing and now
there's only the smell of other men's promises.

I'll ask for you
at the small house
you rebuilt room for room:
"She'll know her way when she forgets."
Did you see even then, all the trees
upturned, and me, moving on a vast plain.

 

(Published in famous reporter 19, June 1999)