This is a manuscript write... My Dad! HE had all sisters - and what characters! I have three BIG brothers! :)) LOL Kate xx

I NEVER CALLED YOU DADDY


I never called you Daddy -
it didn't seem quite right
for what you were:

A huddled figure crouching
Peter Rabbit-like among the radishes,
hiding from Mr McGregor.

Or the diminutive man
dressed in stale clothes
between wards
between latrines
between women
at the hospital...

And, in a small room
you were often a crowd,
big with confusion
and alcoholic gusto;

You weren't exactly Daddy
at those times, either.

But, where life is forever trapped
in sepia,
you look like the child I was
back then,

And I can think of you as Daddy,
knowing you were perhaps a little boy
lost,
looking for a lap to sit on
and arms to hug you -

Just like me.