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This one's for you

 It's you I miss most.

Sometimes I see someone in the street
who looks a little like you,
and I feel a pang
before I remember
they are not you.

You belonged to North Earl Street
and Dun Laoghaire,
the mixture of places,
the way I am a mixture too.

You fed the birds.
You fed the swans.

All life mattered to you.

You were gentle,
laid back,
yet always thinking thoughts
that seemed to travel somewhere
I could not quite follow.

You told me stories:
about dogs,
about people in your life,
about things I never expected to hear.

You said
I didn't go to boarding school
because I don't eat as fast as you.

You said
weak tea gives you fleas.

The logic escaped me,
but the sentence remains.

We would sit in cafés,
drinking tea,
and I was bewildered the first time
you asked me to be Mother,
because I wasn't used to it,
because nobody had asked before,
because somehow it mattered.

You liked ethnic food,
strange ideas,
and conversations that wandered
wherever they pleased.

You are my favourite person
to walk with,
to talk with,
to share a meal with.

Sometimes I see someone
who reminds me of you.

Again,
that small sharp pang.

I miss you.

I love you.

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