the lists of the dead AUTHOR Frank Dullaghan We contain ourselves, live off our small hoard, make do with the window’s vista; our granddaughters’ voices like birds flitting behind the laptop’s shimmer around our empty apartment. I watch the numbers daily climb until I think too many will topple. I already know, there’ll be names I won’t want to accept in the lists of the dead. Nor can I say I won’t be one. We name the ailments and vulnerabilities of our siblings and offspring, our distant friends, as if this naming is a sacrament that some god will heed. But god is just the love that lives in the heart. And so many hearts will stop, so many hearts will lose their god.
Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer currently living in Malaysia. Cinnamon Press (UK) has published four of Dullaghan's poetry collections, most recently including Lifting the Hatch (2018). Dullaghan has have work published in various international journals, including Queens Quarterly and Into the Void in Canada. Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash.
24 | APRIL 2020
