With Or Without You

With or without you, sooner or later, the

boat comes home.

Upturned faces on the dock - split into

smiles, smeared with tears.

Bones washed up on a lonely beach,

picked clean. Bits of wreckage.

Mum and Dad are dead now,

still looking out for you, up and down the street.

If you came home, they didn’t know you.

You came home and they didn’t know you at all.

With or without you,

the boat comes home without you.

© Kate Ahearne