sock drawer

Is this the drawer

where Grandad

kept his gun

wrapped in an old crepe bandage?

This drawer

with tortured walnut veneer 

where I now keep my socks?

An old service revolver

from his time in the war

the Great War

wrapped in a crepe bandage

and tucked at the back

of this drawer

next to a small cardboard box

of ammunition.

And did you find it once

when, aged fourteen,

on a cold Sunday afternoon

you were searching 

in forbidden places

for string

or a thimble

or some such thing?

And did you

when you spoke to him later

of your find

and though the sharp rebuke had

stung your ear

then understand what he had

had in mind

during the dark days

of 1941

when Hitler seemed invincible

when the War seemed lost

when he had promised you

and Joyce

and Grandma

that Adolf would never

take his family alive?