October’s Poem of the Month
The Gallery Press is delighted to be
publishing Conor O’Callaghan’s new
collection, Live Streaming, on 19 October.
Grace
They’re coming to collect
the table I’m writing on.
They texted a while ago
to say they were leaving
a suburb four miles south.
Midweek, early evening:
traffic should be light.
I thought of sitting here
in gratitude, once more,
as long as supper lasts.
VINTAGE JOB LOT. My ad
hung weeks unanswered
in the whole foods co-op.
Then yesterday they called
to ask if I’d sell piecemeal.
Happily. The sun has drifted
slantwise of our building.
In the back lane behind me
two kitchen porters smoke
in what could be Cantonese.
For six years my things have
waited for the party I was
always threatening to throw.
There’s the door . . .
They’ve been
and gone and bought the lot!
They were tremendously sweet:
she, Flemish, full of chat;
a fiancé with beard and bearing
of some prince in waiting.
They came for my table just
and took a shine to everything.
We laughed and lugged it all
to her employer’s truck
parked running in the lane,
shook hands, wished luck
and hugged, for heaven’s sake.
I came indoors to find
this notebook open on the floor
beneath my broken bread.
Thank you sideboard fetched
halfway across the Fens.
Thank you captain’s chest,
handmade plywood bed,
mess benches from the war.
Thanks to all those friends
I shipped on for a song. Thank you rooms in shade
that might yet prove to be
night already happening.
Thank you echoes echoing.
I have more hope in me
than I’d have ever guessed.
from Live Streaming (2017)
by Conor O’Callaghan
