Hard To Say What He Did
It’s hard to say what he did, my father.
His shoulders portaged crates,
he captained boats in the night,
chocolate eggs would appear
which smelt of ChefChaouen.
He taught me to listen out
for bells and police sirens.
He said, ‘men in ties are suspicious,
and don’t stay sober too long
unless you want to spread-eagle
the architecture of your wings.’
He was of the rock, my dad,
a history of merchants and pirates
besieged his heart, his heart,
my father’s heart was salted
and dry like desiccated fish.
But it’s hard to know if he
held schemes in his entrails.
I asked him once, in whispers,
what direction the wind blew,
he laughed, he said, ‘the wind
blows wherever you want it to.’
My father taught me holes
teach you to write, passerines
are wise to the violence
of seasons, leave when it’s time,
stay if you have to, bite yourself
into the body of existence,
stamp the ghost of your eyes
into someone else’s eyes.
Nothing weaves literature
deeper than the fresh yoke
in the absence of egg.
My father didn’t work days.
He carried plastic carrier bags
with cigarettes and magazines.
Whom he loved is anyone’s guess,
or what thoughts he entertained
at dawn, before he took to bed.
My father carried a pipe and a blade.
He is momentous in my world,
just as I was a rope in his world,
every time he took to the sea,
every time I pick up a pen.
It’s hard to say what he did, my father.
It’s hard to say what anyone does
when they abandon the grid.
Gabriel Moreno was born in Gibraltar in 1977. Graduated in Philosophy and Hispanic Studies at the University of Hull, Yorkshire, UK (1995-1999). Doctorate in Hispanic Literature at the University of Barcelona (2002-2007). Published works in Spanish include, Londres y el susurro de las amapolas,Omicrón (2007), Cartas a Miranda (2008) and Identidad y Deseo (2010). Works in English include The Hollow Tortoise, (2012) and Nights in Mesogeois, Annexe (2013), The Moon and the Sparrow, (2015), The Passer-by (2019).His most recent and 13th publication is Heart Mortally Wounded By Six Strings. Website: www.gabrielmoreno.co.uk