Martin Malone

The Training for Loneliness

Until it was you, my son,

your father’s best work

was that night in Manhattan,

alone in a mid-town hotel

but for the barman

from Roscommon

explaining to me

the finer points of hurling,

while I waited for the hour

to come and go when

we’d meet for that drink,

look one another in the eye,

and head our separate ways.

No sane woman would cross

the pond to drink to an also-ran,

so, I knew she wouldn’t show

but the point was that I had

and there began my draft of you.

As the moment passed, I swear

That’s Life lit up the jukebox

right on cue, as if it knew

a fool’s errand was over.

Fíonn asked why I was laughing

as I drained my glass of Powers.

When I told him, he poured me

another and we got to talking,

as fellers sometimes do,

about loneliness and home

and the Great American Songbook

of lost love that crops up

at a time like this: your father,

as a younger man, trying to write

the poem that will become you

and is you and will go on

when this song is well-sung.

                                                                 from Larksong Static: Selected Poems 2005-2020 (Hedgehog Poetry, 2020)