O city throned beneath a star-struck sky,
How softly thy towers ascend, as if to vie
With heaven’s lamp that burns in silence deep.
Each spire, a silver vigil meant to keep
The night from drifting into shadowed rest,
Lifts up its crown upon the darkened breast
Of evening’s velvet vastness.

At four in the morning
I reach for my children.

I remember the weight of them,
the small bones of their shoulders,
the warmth of their faces
pressed against my chest.

Sixty-four years after
the world held its breath,
not in anticipation of my birth
but hoping missiles would stay silent
in their tombs,

I have been watching the milkweed
give away everything it has.

All summer it laboured
at being green,
at holding the small, striped mouths
of caterpillars.

Now it opens its dry hands.

Hope is a bird with wings.

It rises at the slightest sound,
mistaking every morning for a promise.

Acceptance is the branch.

Bare wood. A little bent from winter.

It does not call the bird to stay.

There is a room
we do not use.

Still,

some evenings
I leave the light on.

Not for you.

At least
that is what I tell myself.

The radio saying
something happened
somewhere.

At work,
the computer wakes.

Password.

Email.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How was your weekend?

Fine.

By ten
you are thinking about coffee.

The kettle boils.

A cup sits
beside the sink,
a little stained
around the rim.

Outside,
the birds have started.

Forgiveness can remain unfinished
because love remains unfinished.

Grief remains unfinished.

We remain unfinished.

There is no clean edge
where the hurting stops
and mercy begins.

The wound is older than all of us.

No one remembers
where it began.

A room.
A hand.
A silence.

Someone learned
that love was dangerous.

There was a time when I would have spent the day thinking about the telephone,
imagining her voice,
the first awkward words,
the possibility of something that had never happened before.

An apology, perhaps. Or simply my name spoken without accusation.

But yesterday I had coffee. I read the news. I went about my business.

Glasgow does not choke
on its history.

The city breathes deeply.

Brick and stone,
iron and rain,
work held in the walls.

The city takes it in

and exhales

voices,
laughter,
coffee,
questions,
music.

I have begun before.

More times than I can count,

more times than I meant to.

I have packed what remained,

closed doors without knowing

what waited behind the next one,

and learned that starting over

does not always look like courage.