La Maison Bleue

Before I died, we rented a blue house

on a narrow street that twisted down

to a river bridge’s leaping arch.

The house had photographs of a family

just like mine: the parents happy back

in time, looking sideways to the future,

their children born into a Technicolor

age that left them fading from walls: all

handmade brick, lime render and stone

the tincture of honey or that quaint

gesture – a curl of hair in a silver locket.

Since the house was finished in oak, I

thought of my coffin in a black car, my

grown-up children by the graveside, a

baby I’d never know in someone’s arms.

At night we left a casement open and

a bat flew in, its echolocation bouncing

from the angles of the room: I could

see it as a cat’s cradle (that old

marmalade Tom chancing the dusk)

or a parable with many meanings.

When I woke it was under a heavy quilt:

a smell of mice, the sharp sounds of

birds in our fig trees, the river tugging

its fish to face the current, ants at

their labour, a lizard growing a new

tail. There was a market in the

square, a bodhrán’s solemn pulse

making it Sunday. When I reached

for a glass of water my fingerprints

were magnified and white and very

bright. There was a dark stain on

the coverlet, the vine outside glowing

green as if sap was flame. You were

saying something about the heat –

still sleepy, still beautiful – shuffling

into a summer skirt of dark blue

plums; my shoes on the floor, their

footprints heading somewhere.