They call it Good Friday, Mum initiates
the conversation early for fish and chips
and somewhere, not far from subconscious,
I near a church and its pressure leaning in
on her sudden sway for the taste of something
fishy, less meaty, today, on this Good Friday
where tales tell of salt and vinegar and the smell
of soft flesh drying out in the heat of a distant
desert. Later, I flick through photographs-
some West Coast sass, where Mormons saw palms
stretched out in prayer, there, where the cactus
have hard skins and hollow centres to hold
the tears of this dying desert where succulents
send signals to the stars while Joshua, tired
of being seen solely as salvation, has blown
a balloon into the hot air to catch for himself
a better view of how the river lies, here,
where every day is a good day or a bad day
or both or neither and no one talks about
what to eat, only that food is a gift and death
makes way for life and nature can have
soft centres to harbour hope while its shell
dries in the heat of an endless summer
and holds beauty in the pierce of every pine
that stabs its skin during the unlimited
possibilities of goodness in every single day.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly