Mother’s Girl
 
Leaving a litter of lies behind him,
my father would syphon petrol from a neighbour’s car
like sucking venom from  snakebite,
and disappear in his mini pick-up
into the orchards and fields of his office.
 
Mother was determined to exorcise
the sins of my father from me ,
so caught stealing chocolate biscuits
my legs stung with slaps,
detected lying about the lost PE kit ….
I was invisible to her for the rest of the day.
 
But when cancer caged my father;
she and I kept vigil either side his breathing cadaver,
praying he would give up…
After his death, a nightly tap on my bedroom door,
“Can I sleep in here tonight?”
 
And when she brushed my childhood aside
to explain the facts of our life:
the ramshackle house un-saleable
after father’s cut and shut renovations,
savings that rattled like a near empty piggy bank,
I inwardly strutted with pride.

Fiona Sinclair


If you have any comments on this poem,  Fiona Sinclair would be pleased to hear them.