The Half-Rhyme

The Half-Rhyme

The first word of my father’s I remember
Came on a starlit night, outside our house,
When I was four –sometime before September
Of ’39. The talk had been so serious
Inside, they didn’t see me leave my pouff
To stamp on a spider crossing our lounge floor.
My hand held, as we watched his friend drive off,
I asked him, ‘Daddy, is it peace or war?’
His strong voice calmed me: ‘Peace’.
When he was dying,
My hand-clasp seemed too small a thing to give;
I said, choked up, ‘Maureen is pregnant’, lying,
But desperate to make him want to live.
Struggling against his stroke, he managed, ‘Nice’.
And so we comforted each other, twice.