Fathers’ Day
Just for a moment there you had me.
Fathers’ Day, and I suddenly thought,
I’ll give you a ring, that’ll surprise you.
Well, it would have done: you’d been
dead sixteen years and were never
that keen on calls anyway. You had
me going for a second or two, though.
About the same length of time,
I remember you telling me,
as when you woke up one day,
sunlight streaming into your room,
and for an instant forgot you were
bedridden and dying, feeling instead
what a good morning it would be
for a walk on the Warren.
Rick Rycroft retired from practising dermatology in London in 2005 to spend more time with his poetry. In 2011 he moved to Frome, since when he has taken part in classes, workshops and poetry cafés there, as well as in Bradford on Avon and Bath.