My Father Had One Eye
He left us when I was three,
old enough to remember
him reading the paper,
blowing open the pages
and over the top, winking at me.
A spanner took out his eye,
in the war, he was tuning a car.
“Turn her over,” he shouted.
Under the bonnet the engine leapt,
not a heroic injury.
Growing up I felt the lack
of a father, was divided in two,
like the half pig we bought
that slithered, two-legged, one-eyed,
out of the neighbour’s sack
onto the cold, kitchen floor.
Our neighbour’s chain saw had cut
even its tongue in two.
It was heartless, gutted,
that pig, as it one-eyed the door.
Page(s) 44
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