Pat Borthwick
Uncle Dan
The pressed shamrock on the mantelpiece,
his piano stool packed with Irish airs,
my grandfather's walking-stick
he had taken to polishing every night,
he left to me.
I remember him more as an outline,
his nostrils blocked with flour,
his white shadow-self
drawn in like a blackboard sketch,
a negative,
unloading bulging barges
down at the quay.
Roped in twos they trudged in
like old pairs of shoes,
weary from crouching through bridges,
rising and falling in locks.
Uncle Dan lightened their load
steadying the hose,
a great flopsnake, its hessian mouth
plunging through hatchways,
feeding from wheat-filled bellies below
while the taste of fenland grain
uncurled through the town,
clouded and fuzzed the face of the mill,
took root in his throat.
I picture him now,
thinned down to a ghost,
his safety mask
worn like a necklace
down on his chest.
I can picture him too
astride a mule,
he and my mother
fetching the churns.
Green fields.
Green hills.
Page(s) 31-32
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