David Knowles
father
your hair quite white
but then it always was —
since shrapnel shocked the colour from it
overnight
and she drained what was left
i remember how
under the car
you would ask —
holding out a greaseblack hand
‘pass me the . . . . . . . .’
absorbed in the entrails of the engine
your question faded
to no close
until, angry at my immobility,
you slithered feetfirst out
to get the spanner
now i’m afraid to hold a saw
or tentative tap a chisel
in case i take too much off
spoil good wood
echoes of a slim
passing handsome man
(Tank Corps uniform —
even to marry —
who drove a tank
into a Scarborough chip shop
i like to think you
looked calmly round
‘three haddock and chips, love’
and drove out.
learned blackout. pleasures
with a local WAAF)
flood between me
and my infrequent women
saturdays
night out
two pints at the Elm Tree
lukewarm greasy hotdog
brought for us
marooned at home
your moving out —
someone pulled the world from under us
my sister tells me
since the illness
since they wrenched
the guts out of you
you get around more —
visited step-relations in South Africa
flown off to Guernsey
a world once bounded
by North and War
become elastic
pity
we missed each other’s growing up.
Page(s) 6-7
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