When the priest came knocking
for the third time we shut him out
and he stood for a moment clutching
his beads in the rectangular window
of the hospice door – The line between
comedy and grief really is that thin –
someone knew there wasn’t time
for another rosary because suddenly
we’re watching the life tip gently
out of her
like water from a cup
and we all lean inward as though
to catch some part of her leaving or as
though we’re pulled forward the equal
and opposite reaction to her slipping
away so when you cough and say now
then trying to shake off the feeling like
a dog shivering off water I’m glad,
for a moment, to be taken briskly outside
so that we might go to an art gallery
or a book shop or a café down by the river
somewhere with books and a fire
but I’m thinking what are we doing
your mum has just died, all this before
I learn what a wake is and before
I mumble my first hail marys and why
are there so many and before I’m the only
brown person at the funeral and you’re
smiling and trying to usher me through
the art gallery gates as though this were
an interruption in my yearly visit to Sligo
and now that the worst has happened
and the waiting is over with what’s left to do
but mother me.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2023. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor for 2023 was Aoife Lyall.
Editor’s Comments:
This is a poem not so much about time but about times. Time manifests in a multitude of ways through a poem ostensibly about the last moments in a person’s life. We witness the rites and rituals enacted at certain times, the time that somehow exists after a loved has died, the bewilderment of time being both finite and infinite, that time is not the same for everybody. The word “suddenly” is used to its full effect in this poem with ‘time’ and ‘gently’ holding it in place on either side, not to ease but to emphasise the true nature of a sudden event, both so finite in action and infinite in consequence.
Author’s Comments:
‘When the priest came knocking’ is about my grandmother’s wake. It is a poem about denial, ritual, absurdity, and the strange ways we handle grief. It is written as a single broken stanza, as I wanted to capture a sense of breathlessness, confusion, and overwhelm in the form. It is also the only poem that I’ve written where the first draft was largely fully formed.
