Passing
When I was twelve my father told me he loved me.
It was a Saturday afternoon, TV switched off; a heaviness
in the air. I was that age when everything changes.

It was four weeks after my friend had died. I’d heard
the news like it was a story, a newspaper clipping.
The double-decker, blood that wouldn’t clot,
her new school uniform, the gutter.

I’d cried, not quite sure of what I had lost,
found a quiet place, nothing drastic,
just quiet and time passed.

He wasn’t a demonstrative man but his hands were strong.
He held mine, said he’d noticed I didn’t sing any more.
You know that I love you, you know that don’t you?
I let the question hang, milking the attention.

It was around this time that the funfair came.
Grass turned to straw. Posters gave out fancy dress,
a strongman pulling a double-decker with his teeth.
It was July, hot and the forecast for summer promising.

 Merit prize in Nottingham Open Competition 2014