Conversation with my Imagined Father
These photographs don’t yet exist,
the ones with you smiling,
cracked edges
bleached out by piercing UV rays
no one can see.
But in them, we sit next to each other,
your garden still growing,
my son on your lap
as he clambers to your shoulder
planting little vowels directly in your ear.
Our glasses, half emptied,
rest in the sunshine,
a nimbus of pollen
lifting through the air.
As words settle between us
they built something bigger:
a course through which
floods of waters could run,
our distance resting itself.
Imagined Conversation with my Father
Drug free, drink free,
your weight back to normal,
I’m so glad you’ve found your feet again.
Your cancer sores healed and
that big black mass
delivered into a final sermon,
atomised to a pin prick,
lost in your enlivened blood stream.
That sterilised room finally left behind.
The lights turned out.
________________
James Appleyard is a London-based poet and writer. He edits and runs Invisible Hand Press. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Aesthetica Magazine and has been anthologised by Medusa's Laugh Press.
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