His house always smells
of cooked eggs and fish,
except once a fortnight when the cleaner’s been
His wineglass has made a permanent pink ring
on the table by the sofa where he sits
and a purple vein stain on his nose
In the pub every evening and on the box
the accents and colours bewilder him
He grew up in a hamlet in Northern England
with a twin brother and a dialect and not even electricity but now
he has Sky News, Hot Seat, footy, cricket
He sits in the ruins of his life
The jumbled CDs, Slim Whitman,
Mario Lanza, Mozart, Doris Day,
Vera Lynn’s ‘White Cliffs of Dover’
The pile of Dick Francis paperbacks
The twentieth-century library smell
of the Works of Rupert Brooke
and the Definitive Edition of Kipling’s Verse
The paintings of long-gone cats
The photos of the artist: my mother
The sweaters she knitted him,
the handsewn cushions, her side
of the bed
The shot of his son, proud
with a big dead salmon
a few years before
the car crash
His grandchildren in primary school,
one in short hair and a collared shirt,
another in a dress, face unpierced,
their pronouns still he and she
The wedding photos of me and their dad,
a gentle man from a well-off family,
his erstwhile son-in-law
When I was little I rode on my father’s shoulders
He spread out his raincoat to shelter me
Now I’m his power of attorney
and I call him twice a week
Today I saw an umbrella stand
with no umbrellas, despite the rain
First published in Tarot 10, June 2025
Jackson 