What Happened?

 

 

                         Let me start

                         I mean my father said

                         or is it what I heard

                         from a spinster aunt

                         she was my Godmother

                         or so they told me

                         or was she a secret widow

                         deserted by a soldier

                         who died in the trenches

                         I never could find out

 

 

                         Let me start again

                         I mean my father said

                         or is it my mother's voice

                         through a spinster aunt

                         which brings me back

                         to before even then

 

 

                         I had a father once

                         I never knew

                         he stared at me

                         before he died

                         but that's another story

 

 

 

                                                 Jack Mashman

                                                 1992