After 

I didn’t know your name.
Now I want to know the name
of every living thing,
the loop and scoop of vowels
that shape the air,
the grab and spit of consonants
that break the fall of vowels.

I didn’t know your name until
the gap you left in other people’s lives
and mine fixed it to lampposts and across the internet.
Your tilting, lounging face
knocked me off balance;
a silhouette of disbelief,
a call-back, a prayer.

You served coffee with a soft-toned, welcoming hello,
a double shot of warmth and light.
Now I want to know the name
of every living thing,
so I can search and find.

Did you fall or jump? If you jumped,
I wonder if you changed your mind mid-flight,
and stumbling hope, regret or love stepped in?
Or, falling, left a cry behind?
With you crashed a hundred other thoughts
and loves and lives.

I want to know the sounds and lullabies
of every language,
so people can fall gently into sleep
on mattresses,
not thud, or hurtle or explode
into uncanny silences.

Thoughts search for footholds,
clamber from the place you landed,
backwards.

I want to learn the name
of every living thing,
string filaments of sentences
to catch the holes in words.

Di – o – go.
That double-echoing,
open ‘o’.

August 2015

In memory: Diogo Martins – Alvez – Moreira