A faceless man visited me
today with pencils and paper
and a picture of a broken heart
he wanted me to sign. He listened
like a starving pilgrim to my stories,
my adventures with the man I call Dad
(when I’m allowed to
by the woman I call Mum).
He said that in time all bad things
will float away into the belly of the night
to be swallowed by the stars, and that
their light will be a great torch to guide me.
It was only afterwards I realised
that the faceless man looked
a lot like the memories of my Dad.
All Rights. Alan Kissane.
Alan Kissane works as a teacher of English in the Midlands, UK. His poetry has appeared in print and online at Allegro, Culture Matters, Dissonance Magazine, Dreich, Dust Poetry, Emerge Literary Journal, Epoch, Fahmidan, iamb, Ink Sac, Kindling, and Neologism, amongst others. He is currently editing his first chapbook entitled ‘Gather Up The Silence.’
