A flushed August lost me you
as September grabbed red
like love onto your hand and tugged
you away.
It was amid my own blue desperation
that I asked my mother
how she knew
when she fell for my father.
She told me that falling in love is
pulling the splinters from your hand
without wincing
and staying in love is squeezing
a bottle that won’t crack
and losing love
is finding the diamond slivers
like silver lace on your bedside
table the next
morning.
As the sun rises a ripe, round orange
I think of my father, statelines away,
playing his wooden guitar
that only wears but never breaks.
He picks away at the strings
as he sings to other women
though I know he’s only
ever loved once and
never will again,
oh,
Mother.
And I think of you and I think of him
and I can’t help but connect the dots,
two stars made constellations,
my father, and you.
And as I watch my mother drive
herself blind from looking,
I promise you, never more
will I wish upon a dying star.
-Rory Finnegan
as September grabbed red
like love onto your hand and tugged
you away.
It was amid my own blue desperation
that I asked my mother
how she knew
when she fell for my father.
She told me that falling in love is
pulling the splinters from your hand
without wincing
and staying in love is squeezing
a bottle that won’t crack
and losing love
is finding the diamond slivers
like silver lace on your bedside
table the next
morning.
As the sun rises a ripe, round orange
I think of my father, statelines away,
playing his wooden guitar
that only wears but never breaks.
He picks away at the strings
as he sings to other women
though I know he’s only
ever loved once and
never will again,
oh,
Mother.
And I think of you and I think of him
and I can’t help but connect the dots,
two stars made constellations,
my father, and you.
And as I watch my mother drive
herself blind from looking,
I promise you, never more
will I wish upon a dying star.
-Rory Finnegan