My Dead

He reads aloud about visiting the Underworld in dreams,
seeing his dead again. Through the big window behind him
there’s a flowerbed and some long grass;
a road with not much traffic; and on the far side
a strip of whins and conifer trees – the rough.

It has a gap in it: I can see a foursome teeing off.
Middle-aged men, their torsos slipping,
spreading, around the waist; all wearing baseball caps
and expensive sleeveless knitwear
in the spring sun.

One sets up the ball, and flexes his driver
– I want to say wood, but they’re not made out of wood now, something lighter
so the head can be the biggest permitted size and still be swingable
with a bigger face to aim at the ball. Technology,
I hear myself think, in place of skill.

More flexing; then adjusting his stance. At last he takes the shot.
I don’t see where it goes, but his backswing’s rubbish.
As for his downswing – barely worth the name.
No amount of fancy kit
would have given that ball lift.

I bring my attention back, remembering
what a disappointment I was. I never really played;
what I know about golf is theoretical.
But a lot of it. I never see my dead in dreams
but I hear them. Oh, I hear them.

Judith Taylor lives in Aberdeen, where she co-organises the monthly Poetry at Books and Beans events. Her latest collection, Across Your Careful Garden, is published by Red Squirrel Press. She is one of the Editors of Poetry Scotland.  Website: http://sometimesjudy.co.uk/