Never Seconds

Given half a chance,
my blood can boil with rage,
but now it tingles with excitement,
all thanks to the beauty of poetry,
the kindness of alcoholics
and the love of God,
but not in that order.

The front page of the Independent
would have been enough
to trick me into a drink
and a spliff
and unceremonious blackout,
but not this time.

A nine-year old Scotch lass,
happily posting her blog
‘Never Seconds’,
complete with pictures of her
skeletal school lunches,
had been banned from releasing
photographic evidence
of the sick excuse
known as school dinners.

Her head had marched her away
from class
and ordered her never to blog again
so she posted her final blog,
‘Goodbye’.

But that wasn’t that.

Messers Oliver and Prescott
led the revolt,
and within hours
the ban was lifted
by her scheming,
servile,
slavish
local council.

My Dad is on his deathbed
this Father’s Day
because he has something
on his lung
so they can’t operate
on his hip,
but nothing will stop him shrieking
‘My son wrote that book!’
on his bedside table
in Cape Town.

It’s all come full-circle;
connected.

Finally, he’s proud of me.

I visited Mum today,
after coming second
only to Fifty Shades of Grey
at Waterstones Basingstoke.

I wanted to tell Mum the good news,
knowing full well
she wouldn’t understand tuppence,
but what the hell!
Good news is good news
and she loves to see me smile.

One of the other ladies there
doesn’t like it
when I stroke my mother’s face
and cheeks
and hands.

I always wet
a ball of tissue
when I arrive
because she’s always got something
round her chops.

Mum pleaded, ‘You know I love you’
with tormented eyes,
and so I replied,
‘and you know I love you’;
volley-bubbles
of love and loss,
back and forth
without end.

We sat and gazed
into each other’s eyes,
as you do,
and the old lady
saw her moment.

‘Oh my God. Look at them,
at it again.
She’s your mother,
not your bloomin’ girlfriend’.

She sometimes says
I look like her son,
but I’ve never met him.

I try to tell myself
it’s the dementia talking
but it’s a cruel illness
and it won’t stop the cruel
from speaking their illness.

Mum and I had tea and biscuits
and then I heard something
like gravel
bobbling on the table.

She had pulled
a rotten tooth
from her mouth
and placed it there
without expression,
like a cat at dusk’s doorstep.

‘Well done, Mum,’ I said,
quick to remove myself
from shock,
and grateful
she hadn’t swallowed it
or chewed on it.

It was a molar,
roots and all,
mottled and caked
in shortbread
so I cleaned it with a tissue
and wrapped it up.

When I gave it to the nurse,
she said,
‘I’ll give it to the tooth fairy.’

In the car home
with John Lennon
howling
screaming
bellowing
‘Mama don’t go,
Daddy come home’
over and over,
I was in good company.