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14th February, 2025

Friday Poem – ‘The Golden Hour’ by Lorcán Black

Photo of a golden hour sun setting over distant hazy hills.

In honour of Valentine’s Day, this week’s Friday Poem is ‘The Golden Hour’ by Lorcán Black from his collection Strange Husbandry which was a PBS Recommendation.

The Golden Hour Once we had days & days of the sea the shade of green tourmaline, stretching out away from us. The sands dusting our ankles whenever you could steal away from the bar when no one would notice. Once we had days & days of your hand in mine, behind their backs. Small touches, a hand on a hip, maybe. Or your fingertips tracing the line of my bare shoulders when no-one was watching. I don’t know what I thought, but I thought, Maybe this is? * The last time I saw you: the breeze full of orange blossom, you, standing in sun – in haze – out in the middle of a road, in Crete. A dishrag hurriedly slung over one shoulder & a hand clamped to the soft nest of hair at the back of your head. & I thought, I have lovingly held that head. I have lovingly tussled that nest of hair. You couldn’t see me, though from the car I saw you waving. I can’t tell you – that expression haunts me still: not a smile, not sadness, exactly – something else & for twenty-five years
I have failed to find the right word, the right way to describe it – maybe it’s the dishcloth that slid off your shoulder, unnoticed? How naturally it came to lie there, as if it had always been there, there – at your feet, in the heat & dry dust: As if the heart-lost man in that golden hour, utterly broken in the hot street, wavering & waving, bore it no consequence. The heart is an abscess waiting to burst –

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Related Books

This cover shows a dark Renaissance-style painting of a woman with paint peeling away over her face and body. The text reads: Strange Husbandry, Lorcan Black

Strange Husbandry

Lorcán Black

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