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James Mason

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Writing Home

Burning the old man’s letters I watched our histories vanish
Curling, twisting into themselves: time imploding.
The clock stood still and I found myself at year One.
Our past sucked through a straw of smoke and flame.

I retreated from the compost heap into the wet grass to see
His words escape and throw themselves forlornly to the air.
Ash is such a poor souvenir of fire that I kicked it round the garden
Breaking his litany up across the toes of my shoes.

The simple ceremony, tears but no fanfare, finished;
I smoked to the fibre glass butt
One of the cigarettes my twenty-a-day dad loathed me to smoke.

I cannot help
The guilt of growing up or understand why he could not.
After his anger no longer frightened me,
When cajoling and pleading failed, I took my father to
The back garden, tickled his pages with matches
And he shut up.

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