Over Hers
My father's expression
spoke volumes
when after going
through school
with hair down to my
waist
I shave it off, bar a
strip in the middle
after Siouxsie Sioux
“What the bloody hell
did you do that for?”
Dyed black
to match my eye shadow
black leather pelmet
and tights;
Doc Marten's boots
(fourteen hole)
“What the bloody hell
do you look like?”
A dozen earrings
stretching my lobe wide
enough for a bar, a grommet;
multiple piercings in
my ears and face
“What the bloody hell
are you supposed to be?”
A phone home from
college
“Dad, I got a First.”
I hear him pull on his
cigarette before speaking.
“Is that good?”
And the last
conversation I ever had,
trying to convince him
to go into respite care
to give my sister the
break she needed.
“Over my dead body,”
he says, “What the bloody hell would you know?”
“Not over your dead
body,” I said,
“but over hers.”
A mug of tea going cold
on the kitchen sink
while cigarette smoke
swirled around a fluorescent light
and his blind-eye glare
of determination.
My phone call the
following week
to the hospital ward he
was rushed to.
“What do you care?”
asked the nurse, “he's dead.”
No comments:
Post a Comment