A Guitar Called The Guild

In 1962, my dad, half-cut,
came out of a club,
tripped over a tow rope in the dark
and smashed his new guitar.
When it was repaired, he always said
the strings rang just as good.

In 89, a week before he died,
I asked if I could have the Guild.
Though your mum and I have split,
he said, we busked and hitched
around folk-clubs with that guitar.
It belongs to her.

Thirty years later,
just after she had died,
I asked my stepfather
if I could have that
part of my dad
which reminded me so much
of when he still believed
that anything could be
repaired and just as good.

Tristan Moss

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Tristan Moss would be pleased to hear them