To Beckett
The father and his child plod somehow on
past Croker’s Acres, down the fields and lanes.
The image rises, flickers, and is gone.
Madness in your skull is what remains.
Hand in hand they go. Father explains
the twain must jump from “Forty-Foot” at dawn.
Be a brave boy, he calls, as all else wanes.
The father and his child plod nohow on.
The wished-for, given hand is soon withdrawn.
In the gazebo, Father’s belly strains;
he snoozes after lunch. Gaze past the lawn
to Croker’s Acres, well-trod fields and lanes,
until the scene recedes. Your skull retains
an Easter Friday birth. Child still unborn,
the father roams the hills till daylight drains,
then strikes a match. He flickers and is gone.
Don’t look down at the rocks. Be brave, my son.
Hearing the gouging whistle of the trains,
the boy recalls his only good deed done.
A rescued hedgehog’s stench is what remains.
The voice builds company. Whispers. Refrains.
A black-clad woman paces, curtains drawn.
You hear them still—the cries, the labor pains.
And far below, as though the two were one,
the father calls his child.