'He Might Have Been Proud' Poem by Marty McKenna

he might have been proud,
in his dialect to have
the hold of a new word.

rinsed it round his tongue,
used it as often as he could;
layered a sentence with shine.

you asked me, once,
how far back can i imagine,
and i related it to my relationship

with the living; ‘the thirties, ' i offered,
rinsing him out in his prime,
his drip of consciousness;

he might have been sixteen.
i should have mentioned
the trans-universal beings

who can survive the destruction
of a universe, lasted in that
great deadening;

how they may have found communication
with us, perhaps those million years
we roamed insentient.

perhaps i should let it go.

first published in 'dreich'
appeared in the chapbook 'gently but a dream'