Remembrance
He came home bone skinny.
Sisters gathered. His mother waited.
My mum took him upstairs.
I remember orange juice
from the library - in glass bottles
with blue screw top caps.
Mum said he would kneel, crying,
his head on her lap. Too ill now
to work outdoors.
He told me of escape from prison camps,
urine seeping from top bunks.
He spoke German softly.
Mum said he never got his special
electrician’s pay. I see columns
of figures in a dusty ledger.
He told me of night dropping in the desert,
warnings of women in Cairo,
his mate, a Maori called Carroll.
All the men who died in the war
were my father.
Page(s) 72
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