Although, to be honest, if I had my way

I’d put the pair of them on show in the zoo.

I mean, what do they see in each other?

I mean, what do they actually, pardon the expression, do?’

Alphabet Soup

Whenever I went into our local library

I would take out a book for my dad.

An adventure yarn. Something to do with the sea.

Occasionally, I’d bring home one he’d read before.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he would say, ‘it’s a good ’un.’

And settling down, sign on for the same voyage.

It wasn’t laziness on his part, but a kind of fear.

Libraries were for educated people.

Full of traps. Procedures. Forms to fill in.

They would notice his handwriting wasn’t joined up

So then they would try and catch him out.

Ask questions about Shakespeare. About proper books.

Although a stevedore (Mum preferred that to ‘docker’)

And landlubbered all his married life

He’d have passed four-square on seamanship.

Because he’d been to sea himself when young

And would often talk, with some regret,

Of how he’d nearly jumped ship in Fremantle.

He loved the solitude of the bush. Its stillness,

And the sky a blueprint for eternity.

‘And the names of the places. Now that’s poetry!’

I picture ourselves in the outback

The nearest library five hundred miles away

Him, married to a girl from Manjimup

Me, trying to make sense of alphabet soup.

Wearing Thin

‘You’ll soon grow into it,’ she would say

When buying a school blazer three sizes too big.

And she was right as mothers usually are.

Syrup of figs. Virol. Cod liver oil.

Within a year I did grow into it

By then, of course, it was threadbare.

Pulling in different directions

My clothes and I never matched.

And in changing-rooms nothing has changed.

I can buy what I like and when

New clothes that are a perfect fit.

Full-length mirror, nervous grin,

It’s me now that’s threadbare, wearing thin.

Sacrifices

I was forever hearing about the sacrifices

My parents made.

Little ones almost daily

Big ones when required.

Having me meant sacrifices. Going without.

And then to cap it all, the Scholarship:

School uniforms, violin lessons,

Elocution, extra tuition.

‘If it’s not one thing it’s another.

I hope you’re worth it.’ But was I?

The dictionary confirmed my doubts:

‘Sacrifice, a ritual killing of a person

or animal with the intention of pleasing a deity.’

Sacrifice. No, I wasn’t worth it.

All that blood for a few O-levels.

Having My Ears Boxed

I am waiting in the corridor

To have my ears boxed.

I am nervous, for Mr O’Hanlon

Is a beast of his word.

For the last twenty minutes

I have let my imagination

Run away with itself.

But I am too scared to follow.

Will he use that Swiss Army knife

To slice through cleanly? Bite them off?