Poetry eZine ~ April 2012

Wednesday, April 18

Sean Walsh: Wee Flower, Old Leaf

I lived a lot in my head, as a lad.
Like, I was the last in the –
brothers and sisters well ahead of me.
They were stretching their wings
while I was still in the nest –
if y’know what I mean…

I didn’t know them. Not really…
And my Dad was away a lot and my mother
working the pub, trying to make ends meet.
So I – I turned into a world of me own…

Well, like, you won’t believe this
but I used to write letters.
To, to the Little Flower. God’s truth…
Saint Teresa of, of Lisieux.

Nearly every night. Two, three pages.
With the fountain pen I got for Christmas.
No matter how cold it was in that bedroom.
And I’d leave them folded under her statue
on the tallboy before I’d get under the blankets…

God only knows what became of them.
Dumped, I suppose, like a lot of other stuff
when the family home was sold off…

And there’s a thing: whenever I go into a Church now
she’s nearly always there to one side or another,
standing with the bunch of roses,
looking at me…

And I think, maybe, she might just get me into Heaven
by a side door when – when the time comes…

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