No matter how we seek to reinvent ourselves
we can never fill the empty spaces left behind
by a dear friend’s suicide.
I do not know how, precisely, I feel,
I just know there is a wandering in my heart,
something hiding between the folds of my soul;
it is so much more than a deflecting mirror,
it is memory mumbling at me, incessantly,
“there’s his story to be told, be brave, be bold”
but all I hear is:
‘fear fear, fear terror, fear, anguish;’
my friend’s untold stories circle around my neck
like a hangman’s noose,
lemon light reminds me
that, finally, there is no place of refuge
no matter where be the horizon,
so I live secretly, hoarding
stories from the nether world
that I dole out to myself
only when absolutely necessay,
when frightened or too much alone
I seek to lift myself into
a significance mood, stoned but not stoned,
if you can see what I mean,
or, maybe, just a new mode of travel
down the back lanes and unadopted roads
that lead me into a borderland
of ruins, of half-forgotten memories,
that I investigate at my peril, in my own time:
poems, novels, plays, opera, ballet, painting:
I bring these back to the multi-storey flats
to help me to see differently:
high windows, yes, but beautiful stained glass too,
lemon light stained with all that love can do.

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