Sister Hamlet(For Melly) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Oh, I still remember
your Hamlet
-the best production I ever saw –

you home
from school
wrapping yourself in the crimson curtain
of our living room
& stabbing yourself
in the arras

& crying:
“ a rat...a rat! ”
& how something or other was rotten &
bringing the curtain down

upon your dying
annoying our mother
critical of your over-heated performance
she sending us
(like a bad review)
scampering.

I will remember
your Shakespeare
to my dying day!

Your eyes wild
your hair flying
and how
with an entire
cast of you
you
acted it out

to my open and gasping mouth
drinking you in
with my thirsty mind

Shakespeare come
startlingly alive
me peppered
with beauty & spittle
Oh, sister Hamlet
I still live in
the wonder of your
telling.