The night before their wedding, Dad tells Mum two things
I.
He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen.
It’s a bad blow. What’s done can’t be undone. Mum’s only choice
is a hostel for unmarried mothers.
She puts on a brave face—
better than finding out at the registry office.
II.
He’s a Russian Jew, came to England when he was seven,
his family fleeing through the night in a horse-drawn carriage.
Mum’s intrigued, doesn’t know much about Jewish people
or Russia, imagines a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Years later, I discover escaping a pogrom in the Ukraine
is his father’s story.
Dad was born in Nottingham.
Janet Hatherly’s pamphlet, What Rita Tells Me, and collection, On the road to Cadianda, were published by Vole in 2022 and April 2024. She has poems in several magazines, including Under the Radar, Culture Matters, Ink Sweat & Tears. She won 2nd prize in Enfield competition, 2023 and was placed first in Vole anthology, 2024.