Missing History

So I'm staring down at this man. He is sleeping. I don't know him well. I return to my book.

Canteen risotto, plum crumble, tea: I am getting used to this.

Father. This man is not so much noun as verb, one who fathered. Pretty soon he will all be past tense.

He was there at my beginning, so I am here at his end.

Today he told me he knows he will not go home again. My mother wrote "She must think I'm dying," he said.

We talk of Nigeria. Its Government bombed one of his schools and a leprosy hospital. "Looked like a barracks from the air, I suppose.

But it's good of you to come, old chap."

"I'm here because you are my father. I am here to catch up on those missing 53 years. I am here to talk of Rommell and Canaris and Ben Gurion and Churchill, all that was important to you. Later, I'll ferry you across the Styx."

"Best not keep the ferryman waiting then."

About the poet: Ross Bradshaw runs the independent publishing house Five Leaves