Adjustment

The first thing that happened,
We stopped separating out
Our glass and plastics.
Dad turned the recycling box into a still
And bracketed it to the roof
Next to the harpoon and the razor wire.

It was hard, at first,
Not having TV. Dad had taken a load of
Old board games down to the charity shop
Two weeks before
So once the power went
All we had left were
Scrabble and fucking.
Fucking is a fifty point bingo.
I think we grew closer
As a family.

I learned new skills –
Woodwork, triage,
Self-defence.
Before, if you asked me to make a sandwich
I’d probably burn it,
But by the time summer came around
I could skin terriers, cut out the poisonous bits
And have the lot stewed quick as Dad
Could catch them.
He always loved me for that.
Called me his little Amazonian.

Sure, some nights
It was tough to sleep,
What with the wind shrieking
Through the wire grilles
And the thought of Mum out there,
Staggering round all wan-skinned and bogey-eyed
With the other gobshites.
We listened to the breeze-music
And made up tunes,
Matilda and I.
Our notes rode the current through smoke,
Streetfires, empty tenements,
Till they joined the low moans of brain-peckish wanderers.
Those nights, I lay in my room,
Rubbing my thumb across Matilda’s button eyes,
Singing my heart out.