You had red hands

put too much salt on food

hugged with tight arms

boomed Bach from downstairs

shouted at me for sleeping in

drove the car off the road

lied about how much you drank

made ginger beer that exploded

under the house

told me our neighbour David dropped

dead and didn’t comfort me when I cried

            I wondered why it was him

            and not you

you invited a stranger

to my sister’s engagement dinner

called me in India to see

if the earthquake had killed us

smoked Dunhill International

and decorated the Christmas tree

not with tinsel but painstaking pieces

of delicate silver rain

you had a pain and you

stopped eating

looked confused when the woman

came to talk about respite

            you kept falling down

            and we couldn’t lift you

the last time

you turned yellow

and the nurses said you were comfortable

at an Easter church service

            I saw for an instant

            that death is not the end

then I forgot again

and wished time would stop

you were in the audience

of a show I did

            this was after you died

and the director said

it was the best performance

I’d ever given and could you

please come every night

            I haven’t seen you since