Anam Cara

Instead of Kissing the Cross …

The Good Friday altar is bleak

three crosses, rough with nails,

we are meant to think

of someone in pain, approach

a cross, each step a prayer,

and take a nail to lighten

the burden. I think of you,

the torture of the last year,

the trembling, no sleep, the change

in life turning your soul into

a refugee, with tears I take

the nail of pain away and promise

my shoulder beneath your cross.

Tonight for the first time

you are able to talk.

I find that it is I

who helped you

to that bleak place,

where no certainty

can ever settle.