Daddy Sleeps

Daddy Sleeps.

Daddy I am thirteen
Standing like the widow
Waiting for the black car
To take me to you.

The Sun has come out
The nosy neighbour grin it wears
Is crushing, crushing me
Like a thick-coated tongue.

The mourners are afraid to speak
Afraid to move
And I am afraid of
What the car wreckage left of you.

The church was where my Aunt was married
And the same fuzzy-faced priest
With comedy eyebrows,
Sticks out like a crude joke.

We are gathered here,
Like Knives
Like Vultures
Like Magpies.

Only real tears were spent on you
But I was washed away
Pretending you might get up
And need me to jump on your back again.

Speeches came and died
Before your Oakwood casket
Open to everything
The last show.

I crept up to the coffin side
A Pancake face and Puffer-fish head
I lost a sound proof scream
Open to the shape of you.

I couldn't bear to touch
Your boneless corpse,
So imagined you were sleep-wrecked
On a dozy, dozy island.