Introduction To Poetry(For Melly) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

You come home
crying
from school

in tears
at Louis McNeice’s
LES SYLPHIDS
telling me the tale
of how a couple

so much in love
come to lose
each other

over the breakfast table
'He brought his girl to the ballet...! '
you sob
& can’t continue
telling it to me.

Oh sister...you are my most
wonderful teacher
of poetry
living it out for me
for real

so that the poem
comes alive
teaching me the beauty
of words
with the breaking of your
heart.