I’m leaving the back yard. Those weeds you spent half the summer thrashing have returned unscarred, thicker, greener, and the perfume from them makes the air moist. They grew back when you stopped to have a bottle of pop. We can’t just stop like that. These are the things I’m leaving. I’m leaving the toys all over the stairs. That magic wand with the glow-in-the-dark star sitting on the coffee table, so that if you walk into the living room at night it seems to float. The paperweight with the unicorn and the snowstorm you shake. It’s May and we haven’t taken down the Christmas wreath from the back door, but the stuffed dove is under the kitchen table on its back, beak open, claws stretched forward. I’m leaving my water colours in the cookie tin. Once we made love in a blackout. There were brass candle holders in sluffing drifts of wax. At the bottom of Cathedral Street cars swished their tails like lethargic crocodiles. Engines straining. You said, I’ll blow out the candles.
