With Honest Eyes

Two of us are not paying attention.
My blonde half sister
squints her toddler’s eyes
against the mid summer sun.
My smile was for my baby half brother
wriggling in mother’s weary arms;
never perceiving them to be weary then.

The grainy black and white photograph
intrigues me, remembering the day
we gathered together;
the uncle shouting the order,
to
“watch the birdie!”

Only now sensing the discord.

The hills and fields around
slowly turn to differing shades of green;
drawing back now
feeling the summer sun
smelling the heated earth;
drifting away from the group
looking back with eyes grown old.

Seeing my beloved brother Podge,
my step brother Degs,
both wearing cheeky grins
each impatient to be away;
cohorts in mischief.

Glimpsing Gill my elder sister
jealous of Shirley, our
step sister destined to cause so much pain.

Dennis the tall step brother
sullen in adolescence,
deserter in manhood.

The bald pate of mother’s
second husband;
mother newly pregnant
with a third child by him;
no wonder she looks worn out.

Is that the birth of regret
in those gentle blue eyes?

Not the happy family group
imagined then…

In all honesty.