A Single Girl
(for Ann, RIP)
Your ashes won't be coming home.
We won't be angsting about shape or size of urn
Or whether to keep or scatter or when or where.
The Black Lough where you used to skate, if the ice held
Or the sea at Portrush where you climbed through marram- grassed- dunes
Ate sand-flaked sandwiches, dipped your toes in the Atlantic waves
Screamed knives,and retreated to Barry's Amusement Arcade
And the burning smell of rubber tyred dodgems, the ping and pull of slots,
The jute box blasting out Sandie Posie's Single Girl.
You never did find your "sweet lovin' man to lean on"
And settled for that "great big town" Down Under.
No email. No Mobile. A non-adaptor.
We heard of your passing a week on.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard April 2017
