Poetry

Plastic dad

You cry for ghost limbs
which so powerful, I've separated
into bulbs of solitude

The war on your face, in your
eyes, engorged on sorrow
left a futile anger sodden and old

Rooted around your heart, a wall
now molten by the burning
you possessed when we first met

My hands still small remember
every note, lovingly taught, at the piano
These brittle moments are exhausted

An array of colours succumbed one night
mother still needs patching, though you
are unravelling my work

I cast away comfort and stare past
eyes, an age of pain.
I have tried to rewrite us

Renting at the seams of childhood
Family moulded together
to form a whole

Bulbous monstrosity from which I slice
our tandem bicycle, accordion and music
Notes fundamentally false

Hollow and bent, you stand despondent.
I depart, in grief
across your seaworn chest

Colombine Neal