Our Old Man
by Patti Abbott
Who ate the finest piece of beef leaving us the luminescent fat
Who ordered us into the gloom for Pall Malls or a pint of Jack
Who pinched change from our pockets schoolbags bureau drawers
Who lashed our legs with his thickest belt for sport
His sun-drenched skull is a ripening orange now
Tarring the roof above us forty years on
He pours pitch and pounds nails
Crouching on legs that quake on flat land
Undulating above the pulsating thud
Of his hammer on the softening surface
His flexing back blue-black with sweat
Discarded shingles sailing like a pitcher’s brush back
Shading our eyes we watch unmoved as
He wades through tar rivulets through years past
On his knees but never contrite
His shadow as sharp as a knife encompasses us
2 comments:
This is powerful, Patti!
Thanks for your kind comments. Much more sure of myself with fiction.
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