Down by the Seaside/ Holding Hands

The sea is a fine and pleasant sight beyond the beach and esplanades;
first green then blue in the changing light
where children play until daylight fades.

A holiday by the sea was a childhood treat:
O let's bury Daddy in the sand!
He'd growl and roar, he'd wiggle his feet,
and life was innocent, life was grand.





Now Daddy is dead and Mommy's on pills
and my brother's in jail for extortion;
my son can't believe that heroin kills
and my daughter's just had an abortion.

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No, this is not autobiographical -- you'd be amazed how many times people assume that everything you write is personal. Well, sometimes it is. Here is another poem, also not autobiographical, representing every parent's worst nightmare ....

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holding hands

here I sit, drawing
elephants for another man's child,
recalling, with pain, the death
of my daughter, when was it,
eleven years ago?

she would have been seventeen

seventeen, sweet and lovely,
convinced she was ugly,
worried about pimples,
horrified, yet very attracted to boys,
glued to her mobile phone;

it's not so hard to imagine

that day, crystal clear
in memory, I will never forget;
it was all so casual, my wife
simply wanted to get her hair done,
asked me to care for the child;

if only days could be lived over, taken back

the sun shining, I thought,
sweetheart, let's go for a walk,
would you like that, alanna?
and she, all smiles and trust,
put on her coat and took my hand;

why, oh why didn't we stay at home?

down on the street, as usual,
the traffic went whizzing by;
I held her hand, tightly,
and we talked about important things,
her school, her friends, her questions;

fathers can love children they do not physically bear

a friend, John O'Farrell,
hove into view: well, is it yourself,
John, I asked, loosing my grip,
a handshake, the child darted away,
and that's when it happened;

no blame to you, John, but stay out of my sight

the police, sympathetic,
say the death was instantaneous:
when she stepped off the kerb
the driver, a Pakistani immigrant,
had no chance to stop;

mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

eleven long years, not one
day goes by when I don't relive
each moment: my wife, tight-lipped,
never blamed me; the divorce
came through six months later.