---
title: "Josif"
url: "https://ruthocallaghan.com/poems/josif"
updated: 2026-10-12
description: "\"Josif\", a poem Ruth O'Callaghan wrote for Strandlines, King's College London's community project on the Strand."
---

# Josif

Beyond the window – glass, plate –\
the clack and stubble of Monday

where pavements flow an oil-slick\
of workers who gallopade, glissade

side-step, smile apologies. Behind him,\
his faithful Gaggia infuses a keep-heat mug

in a rage of steam, its screech a rival\
to the planes that once coiled his valley,

strafing the grey-green haze of olives,\
eclipsing the cries of cicadas in the long grass

– him already knowing only the male shrieked –\
as he huggled within the reek of his father’s thin body.

Josif knows now from that particular clunk-k-k\
that his old friend is close to serving his last.

He prays they will struggle through this lunch.\
Placing a biscuit beside the cappuccino

he shumbles towards the glass-topped table\
too soon finger-smeared, grieves the passing

of easy-wipe formica, the taking of small cups\
over conversations in sunlit squares, accepts

the flicker of eye as Hvala*, contemplates\
the silent elegance of a close-furled umbrella.

*Hvala Thank you

_Written for Strandlines, King's College London, 2019_