Frozen apples

The only photo I have of my father and I together

Is one of us standing outside Convocation Hall

A shadow covers the across the left side of our faces

I am carrying a dozen red roses in my arms

We are both smiling

I hold his arm with the very tips of my fingers

And stand about a pace behind

He was proud of me that day

I was happy that day

It reminds me of the day that the sun shone down on the frozen apples.

Another memory culled from the steaming cauldron of childhood memories

The annual mushroom hunt

Following my father through field and wood as we gathered puffballs

My father was a puffball other times but I won’t go into that 

I choose instead to harvest the pearls

What is the point otherwise?

The man who was almost a doctor

The man who had good hands, as my mother always said

And I don’t mean that as an insinuation of incest

My father never touched me that way

He rarely touched me at all

I could loll in the arms of dreadful remembrances

But anger and hate is not for me

I’ve already been there, done that

And as trite is it may be, I’ve chosen love.

Janet Bellinger c 2006