' ' ' ' ' You Can Call Me... Al(For Fran) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

As your cancer
twists & snarls

biting into your soul

it gnaws away
at my name

the pain unable
to pronounce it

DÓNALL
becomes
...ÓNALL.

Then...NALL.

Until
your dying day

I become simply
...AL.

*******

THAT PLACE CALLED DAY(for Fran)

Later when I looked
for you

(you were gone)

you had turned
into Time

your hair
turned into time

your tears
turned into Time

nothing I could hold
nothing I could touch

(love trying to hold
on to everything)


as the winds of Time
...blew it all away.

I walked away
into that place

called
Day

(you know that place)
between morning & night

that place
where you

no longer are
that place

that you have left

that place where you exist

only
in my mind.

*******

LEAVING IT ALL BEHIND(for Fran)

She strips off
her body

right down
to her soul.

At last
she feels

whole.