A collection of poems and other writings...

Friday 21 March 2014

Home for Lunch

Grandma and Granddad, Dad's parents, used to come and stay for a fortnight in the summer...

In the front room
where the sun pours in 
like coffee in the morning
Grandma and Granddad
sit,
mellow birds,
in the high back chairs
that we don’t use
much.

And then
when John and I
come home for lunch
there they are
waving.

We have belly pork strips
with soft
boiled potatoes,
cabbage
and thin golden gravy.

Granddad
takes out his teeth
and tosses powdered pepper
over his dinner
until we sneeze –
he can’t taste it
otherwise
he tells us.

He uses his pudding spoon
to finish up
the gravy
on his plate.
We watch him looking deep
into the spoon’s greasy bowl.
After a moment
he surfaces.

He tells us
that during the War,
the Great War,
they had to
urinate
on their gas masks
to make them work.

John and I
look at each other
with fearful smiles on our lips.
Grandma scrunches up her face
and pulls
her head down into her shoulders
and says
Ooh!

She is not really listening.

Mum says
its time for Listen with Mother
and
Daphne Oxenford
is coming to get us.

We run back to school
even though its

Latin.

Granddad had bad sciatica.
Sometimes he would ask Mum to go up to the betting shop in town and place a bet on a horse for him.  She was reluctant but did it.
Mum came home flustered after one of these trips - a man in the betting shop had asked her if she had any "hot tips."

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