DOW Korea 1953
There you are, cocky, hand coloured, 18,
on my nana's duchess smiling still,
among crystal, rosary beads and fake pearl,
polished once a month with Mr Sheen,
in a dark mosquito-netted room
where bands of light escape between the blinds
and crawl across the lino in behind
the tongue and groove complacency of home.
Long ago they towed the house away,
but in that darkened chamber you remain:
a smile, slight moustache, dark eyes and tan skin,
unwed, unsuperannuated, ungrey,
image fixed by a family compound of
unrelinquished anger, grief, guilt, and love.