In memory of Joan O’Leary

Life is running around in small shoes,

is seated with groups of the elderly,
the retired, the pre-op, the post-op
and I see that door with Push and obey.

Over the child screams and laughter
a penury of happiness is sidelined
and I feel myself pallbearing as
sibling sounds fill my emptiness.

For Joan is that popular Sherpa,
a mist tampering with my heart;
I have assembled her future with
shavings from her workshop floor.

I am helplessly drawn to taste
the fruit of her stories, am held by
the enveloping of a conveyor
of her summits and peaks.

Meanwhile the shy are out-there,
the out-theres more quiet,
the tone deaf are pleasing ears,
new safe hills are being climbed and

I am a well tended field of roosters
awaiting her hands, an unloved
belly swollen Kenyan child
who has just fallen in love.