I thought it would be good

Since my father had come back

From the dead after all the years,

To take him to places

He had known or studied in.

 

We began in London, walking up

Charing Cross Road, heading towards

The British Museum. 

        ‘It was so strange

About your mother,’ he said.

‘No matter what book I found for her,

She wanted something else,

With more, more – what’s the word? -
until I could find

Nothing that she liked.’

 

And then he turned, suddenly curious:

‘Is she dead, Colm? Is that what happened?’

 

Yes, more than twenty years ago,
I told him. 

‘Of course,’ he replied, ‘we’ve been out 

Of touch.
I didn’t even know she was sick.’