J and P by Annie Mullen

J and P

1.
He is a martyr, she told me that.
She speaks as if I have never met him.
I witnessed him, he was moving slowly,
always amongst the grey,
signalling a gun to his head
(“better off dead”)
with his old crinkle-cut Irish hands.

I wrote you both a generic postcard,
but she says you’re now in rehab.
Did you want to go? I feel a frown.
I thought you wanted it all to be done,
let the ground soak you up, let the soil
own your frail body. No? Who owns it?
I sent the postcard, in bad faith,
for I doubt you’ll read it.
The cataracts won’t let you down.

2.
You’re back at home, in your favourite chair.
Threads fall and disappear,
but it’s ok because you taped Coronation Street.
She loved you with all your moans, quirks
and stories of when you went to war
for a country that was not the country you lived in,
but will be the country you died in.

You got the postcard.
The story of the American with too much food
is definitely one of my favourites.
It seems relevant to how things have always been.
I feel you cover your light, which is fine,
but now her light, you smother it under your grey.