My father was
 
a man’s man, who finding himself saddled
with a wife and daughter - routinely chose
cricket, football, strip-joints over us.
 
Work days unreachable on the farm
like a spy in the field, his workers in cahoots,
putting mother off the scent,
 
A crepuscular return greeted by our dog
who waited at the gate, with ecstasy of capering
father skirted without acknowledgement.
 
At 40, held onto life as if waiting
for an eleventh-hour reprieve from
his cancer death sentence, that never came.
 
Afterwards, my mother's wide-eyed
widow’s progress that descended
into an Hogarthian end.
 
Years of her assassinating his character,
means I have torn up like old photographs
any memories of my father.


Fiona Sinclair

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