|
Home from the Middle East, 1942
(a photograph)
You’ve walked
from Dorcas Street to Nelson Road
in this tight jumper
ill-fitting jacket
borrowed from an old closet
that smells of home
and in the garden
light on your feet
you’re laughing
that rough laugh
a sound like land splitting open.
This is a good time for you—
away from war and newly engaged
your fiancée behind the lens,
in letters home you call her golden heart
and she’s calling your name into the blue day.
There are no airs or graces
no untidy thoughts
only a comfortable smile filling the paper
and years later your daughter
will recount to her daughter
how you’d both argue at night
about money (or the lack of it)
until she’d slip through the back door
into darkness
and hide behind a lemon tree.
When the door opened again
her children would be calling for her
and through the wedge of light you’d come out
to get down on your knees and recite a love poem
you’d written during a lunch break
coaxing her back into the house
with flowery metaphors
and like a cat
she’d slink closer to the light
until she was again inside a warm house
where seven pairs of eyes watched her every move.
|
