The Jarrah Table

At night I don’t hear the whales anymore

they used to sing, and float
magnificent,
translucent
around the foot of my bed

or around the caves in my head

so I could always sleep
in the truth of home.

Tap the piano keys. Bang them,
place your entire palms on the rectangular ivory fingers
and crash, explode your feelings out

in a glorious, cathartic drone

Please, bring me back
to the steady 5 o’clock days
where my father’s thoughts
echoed in notes

around the shadows in our house
and in the shadows hiding,
content

under the solid Jarrah table.

I rejoice in a group
of four knitted souls
brought together by candles
and a meal

I now think of three,
and it makes my face crumple

Like the paper I threw away
every time I tried
to write myself
a letter.
So now, now that I am more
than a mere crescent moon

but less than full

it’s all I can do, some evenings,
to pick up the prettiest autumn leaves

and hold them tender
in my two pockets,
clutching also

to a postcard from Paris in the 60’s

whilst

The apple crumble topping, sits,
pleasantly, in that constant site of destruction

reminding me of ovens, your hugs
Hermione the cat

and the thick, magnanimous
grape vine
wrapping its arms around us

every day of the year.