Right now you have an oncologist, a cardiologist and a nephrologist;
you do not need a poet. Still, I know you will accept from me whatever gifts I bring.
They are doing their work and I am setting to remember your face before your
mother and father were born.
We are talking the routes of great-grandfather and his runaway sons at Waianakarua,
of Unck Skunk hard drinking in the Ōtautau pub at noon.
You have no intention to leave us and yet I am imagining the temblor,
the cathedral falling down again and the bells once more buried.
I am remembering the months when you said “I’m an orphan”
and it was real, and every day a surprise.
I bring your grandchildren to you and apply them like a salve.
Your description of your father-in-law’s face became his death mask,
how his silver hair was combed. You were the one who gave him leave,
to take his leave and go, love, go.