Daddy’s Purple Boots

You leave without your lost goodbyes
at the break of dawn – before I rise
I listen to an empty house, the ceaseless dripping
of a bathroom tap you said you’d fix. I’m slipping
into loneliness already and it’s only eight.
What should I even bother? It’s too late
to say I’m sorry or I love you, I suppose.
You left your boots, I see – the ones with purple toes
I bought you when we toured the hippy rounds
of carnivals and festivals and sodden circus grounds.
You with your accordion and me with my bodhran.
I’m not surprised you left them. You couldn’t get them on.