FATHER

1

Your cousin, taken by a gangrene

a month before your own death,

had saved you from drowning

when you had been a little boy;

he pulled you up from the dark

depths of the lake by your hair.

As a youth of twenty, those

big men in their little car -

who you came to think of

somehow supernatural

as nothing was heard of them, afterwards -

came by your crashed car

in the wilderness during night,

having taken, they said,

a wrong turn; they saved

you, except your crushed leg.

My mother, you said,

also saved your life,

ended the wild life

of a working-class bachelor,

hard work five days a week,

hard fun for two days.

You told of the friends

who were dead or in prison,

and believed that was

to be your fate, but for her.

And I, I sent you to your death.

Three chances I had

to save you in those hours,

and each time the chance came

I didn't take it -

and so you died,

thrice saved,

thrice unsaved and doomed

by me.

2

If there would be life

after death,

how could I face you

and those who saved you,

and loved you?

Let there be life

after death

for you

and them,

and for me

nothing but the cold,

frozen earth

of your grave tonight.

29.01.2021