A Child’s Tale
This is your father, my mum whispers.
Her hands telling me to call him ‘dad’.
Tonight I find the dad sprawled across mum’s bed.
Like a hairy spider, like a beetle on its back, like a black octopus.
There is no room for me in the sea.
You are too old, my mum whispers –
her voice a sort of sly sound like a snake makes
before swallowing its eggs.
Later, shivering and awake, I hear vipers hissing –
coiling beneath my damp bed.
During breakfast the snap, crackle and pop
are muffled in the fly-clotted air.
He is Lord of the Flies.
A blue bottle bloated with sea-dreams.
The knife purrs as mum spreads butter on toast.
This room smells of bacon fat,
pink flesh speckled black,
the egg yolk blotched red, mushrooms buttoned brown.
It’s a full English for the dad.
Later I play footie for my school tribe –
kitted in amber and black, swarming
like a frenzy of bees.
I wait as a king, the drones do their insect thing-
and as quick as a cobra blinds I strike the ball
to score:
an egg nests in a spider’s web.
The dad’s face is a crimson moon,
his voice like a squealing hyena,
all the swarm get wind of him
and my mate asks –
is the dad your new dad?
After supper I let them be.
I have an early night.
Good night son, they smile
like crocodiles
with sun-hardened skin.
Phil Wood: Poetry is a lifestyle outside the place of work, which is a statistics office. Recently published work can be found in London Grip and The Open Mouse.