Father
The child is the father of the man’– William Wordsworth
In the beginning, you laughed at everything.
You rubbed your heels together to make blood
soak the blankets in the cot. Dreaming
of milk and cats, you pissed in arcs
and woke up, wet. Then, you held
buttercups under chins, killed wasps,
dug holes, swam like a starfish, climbed
apple trees. Soon, you grew up fast and thin,
fought in meadows, told black and white lies,
spoke to Diana the moon at night,
lost teeth, kicked balls against the pricks
and told the Speaking Clock to go fuck itself.
Much later, in the golden age of cigarettes,
you smiled at the girls with Pepsi-blue eyes
in the Coke-black dark, smirked at Christ
in a Welsh church, pissed money up walls
and watched it fall. You left me with little to show
for those years of front and fireworks.
And I watch you now as you shave in the mirror
for no-one, wondering what you did with all that
incandescent energy. You let it seep out through
the floorboards to settle in with the dead
skin, tears, clippings and stardust.
I want to grab your shoulder, then
tell you I’m lost without you. Dad, look here,
I say; I want you back, I don’t know what to do
since there’s nothing left to laugh at anymore.