Patrick McGuinness

Every crashed marriage has its black box, the blow-
by-blow account of what went wrong and how,
the crescendo of mistakes that peaks, is for an instant
...

In Monet's The Beach at Trouville, it is week one of the
Franco-Prussian war.
The chair lodges in the sand between two women. One reads, the
other
...

In memory of my father, and in welcome to my son

In the wings there is one who waits to go on,
and another, his scene run, who waits to go.
...

One afternoon we watched a programme on near-death
experiences: a woman tunnelled back through life

to what came after, and was reluctant
to return, since her life paled beside the white place
...

Caesarean state:
every roadsign a mirror
every town a suburb
...

Another of your letters, Cilea, and the paper goes
for weeks in my pocket, folded, unfolded, becomes soft as cotton
as the words fade and have to be guessed at;
or, better still, replaced with words I wish you'd written,
...

An ordinary day at work, except that it's your last:
the pull of the new job, the new house . . . you've only been half-here,
living out of suitcases - sometimes with me, sometimes
with the husband who does not know I borrowed you.
...

I had it for a moment, quick as the clash of two winds on a rooftop:
the smell of barley, hops, fresh diesel and its negative - used air;
then Belga smoke over the exhalations of the waffel-stand:
...