Writing on the Wall

Canada Fry

The Father in the photos was removed
Ma had erased him,
though he never was rubbed out of me,
my young life; on the swing, in the chicken pen,
or seeking treasure in the dirt, my father
from a distant sky, when did you die?

Did you ever think ‘my precious girl, Dad’s jewel’?

Was it in the snow, a winter night,
the car just would not start?
Your heart irregular at best, seized?
Locked  memories in a vice;
the wife, the kids, the jobs the cars
suspended all, inside a shock of ice,

a frozen shield of absence in your eyes.
Who knows what you felt
or who found you or how long?
You’d maybe lain a month until the melt.

That last breath solid in your nostril hair,
a final image with the sharp intake of air,
of hurt or bliss, a child’s touch, a kiss?

A face with yellow curls, the baby girl
you’d flung up high ‘your chubby putti’
framed by the cerulean blue of northern sky.

I cannot know what comfort stole the thought.
I’d have liked it to be me.
I missed you Dad, you see.

A heavy load lugged from house to garden
in February’s low-lit heat. A winter days blue sky
shows up between twists of cloth I hang to dry.

Shirts flapping, white sheets snapping
waving rectangles clap for freedom.
escape restrictions, domestic order,
an enclosed life, in them my spirit flies.

Later I pull off pegs, shake out towels,
smell their rough fragrance;
scent sea and waterfalls expanding
in their wind blown folds. I place
them within the baskets simple weave,

 I hold the handles easy grip, and sit it
with a flick, comfortably upon my hip.

High in The Barns eave’s
from a gnats perspective
blue Fairy, gleams and flashes
fish-like, as it swims among open beams.

Sees anxious faces stare up
listen to the whirr of wings,
watch delicate manoeuvres.
It views us ‘round the

decorated tree, a circle
from above not tall, and spread
below explosions of paper fragments
tinsel-trail to table debris,
and testing detective edges,
a Cluedo game progresses in the hall.

We sit, guide a remote controlled descent,
before our walk. Floor rushes up
meets helicopter, Silverlit,
from Amazon.net, her
desert-storm-dust-sparkle blows
in operation smile,
eat, play, relax,
a stroll between the courses.

The chat; roasties first,
lingering on taste buds,
and the sudden burst of laughter,
when the Moet cork fires up thirty feet,

hits the roof and targets back to bottle,
‘that was a neat,’ to toast the execution
of a Seasonal mission gone to plan,
but for some it’s another Christmas in Afghanistan.

B.Fry 26th Dec 2007