If you ever go to Lowell

I’ve looked for Kavanagh along Baggot Street

and Pembrooke Road

and Mr. Yeats by the shore

down west in Sligo;

whispered a prayer and said thanks

for leaving me a bit less alone.

And if you come for me after I go,

look by a piano

creaked out of tune,

I'll be talking to a memory,

tracing its shape

with grace notes and blues.

Or a Highlands stoop

with a pink Spaulding,

letting children wonder as it’s roofed.

I’ll drift like a rumor

among their whispers,

play a joke

and ask God, please God,

save their youth.