Leaving Do, By Liviu Campanu Poem by Patrick McGuinness

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.

Someone's head talks platitudes over warm Ukrainian fizz;
they present you with the card we signed using that biro on a string
that's been hanging from the calendar since before either of us came.
I'll tune out, become the centre of my own leaving do, because,
well, that's what your leaving does.

Later, from a dip of broken
slats on the beer garden bench, I'll face the tram stop where
you carefully missed your last ride home, and watch something
indistinct that's been hanging in the sky all day,
and longer than all day: this morning's taut blue air fattening

into cloud, choking on a filler of lemon-coloured haze.