Today the morning rang me at 6.15
to tell me what I had done wrong
the day before
and what mistakes I must not make today.
Half an hour later it rang again
waking me again
with a story about the world as it’s turned out to be
and the cargo of sorrows we must stow in our heads.
You rose from our bed
to find a moth on your leg,
its touch, you said, feathery.
This could be the day I marry you.
This could be the day we strew
flowers around the house
(a spider escaping onto my hand)
and stack the fridge with champagne
because of the way the world has turned out to be.
Kevin Brophy’s latest book is This Is what Gives Us Time (Gloria SMH Press, 2016).