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Fabrice Monaci

August is a terrible month (still)

August is a memory month. It starts with my sister and brother-in-law’s wedding anniversary on 31st July; my Ma’s anniversary on 6th August; my grandson’s birthday on 8th August; our wedding anniversary on 25th and my daughter and her husband’s on 26th. The list goes on. However, the outstanding date of memory has to be the death of our daughter, Aoife on 1st August 2004, fifteen years ago.

Time has calmed the waters, grandchildren have ameliorated the loss, but healing and recovery are much less certain. The whole of July builds up to the date and on the day we have a warm remembrance at the bench with a plaque to her memory in Malahide Castle. It includes a champagne picnic. What other way is there? Every year, in a quiet space during that time, a poem like this emerges. It always does.

So read, enjoy, pass on and send me feedback.

Aoife

There is a tiny, dark room in my mind

that is hers, her things randomly stored.

Locked tight with a weave of oldness,

as a kind of worn, unworkable bolt.

The rest of me gives it a wide berth,

fearing the effects it might have on me

should any of its contents be let loose,

even after this time, as I think of her.

Peter Clarke

August 2019

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