The Fond Farewell.


The hour marches on defiantly,
like a small child, stamping.
She shows me into her
parlour.  What a time beaten
name for a room.

The air is thick with emptiness.
I have to swim my way through
and I wash up next to my father
in his Sunday Best.

His skin is diaphanous, Lunaria
annua.  Sweet honesty is his way.
What does one say to a corpse?
I lean and kiss his cheekbone.
Chilled, clean and crisp

golden delicious.  His face looks
pinched, his body smaller and it
laughs up at me as I stare.
Wearing the suit of a bigger man.


Soupy air, heavy with years of lies.
I try to leave him, but the dichotomy
of love pulls me back.  Stealthily
I lift the lapel and leave him
smokes for his journey.


* Rebecca King lives in Norwich with her partner Andrew and her two youngest children, where she endeavours to write her first novel.