questions about my glass aquarium breaking
And how you were like the back garden of my house at home
where it smells of Ribena and the first dog is buried
parallel to the second dog and the third dog is trying to dig them both up
so we cover the dirt with: paving stone, brick, sun lounger
(you don’t remember but this happened)
so mum puts down a sun lounger and you climb on, halving your eyes
through airport sunglasses, asking
‘are you okay’
(okay, maybe I might have gestured, my arms were heavy though
with batting back dog three and helping mum build
the castle over dead pets)
I imagined you’d be a doctor, that’s what we are as
children and all it means is a little mouth closing
my heart is asleep on an escalator now, don’t let my
blood pressure go, this heart murmur
you can’t hear still, I’m underneath the
rock of you, limbs stuck out like jetties where you nod into phones
there was a valley when you shut up
so I said how your parents are worse
than parents on morning tv who crush Richmonds on their
babies, it was late and you went and it was three weeks later
and you went.
