Category: Rituals

They had two boys
at about that age
she spoke to their father
suggesting he speak to him about
“ WHAT?”
Huffing and puffing trails to ….. “ that’s your job.”
“ Well Micheal,” she replied
“they are boys,
and you do seem to understand the mechanics of it. ”
She did
and
“ oh Mum we’ve done that at school – they showed us a DVD.”

Without responsibilities –
wife, children, school expenses
and
the elephant at the table –
mortgage: 14, 15, 16 percent and climbing,
it was easy to say,
“ I wouldn’t put up with that shit.”
Seasonal worker … just for the harvest
rent – cheap – tiny,
minute, even for a 1-bedroom cottage
the rest for groceries, booze,
and what the locals called wacky baccy.
Often I caught the looks –
sometimes  I saw envy,
on other occasions, memory.

An orchard
in a small town with not much else on offer
six permanent staff and owner
who
everybody knew had a menacing loan –
he’d made sure
and would often say
“ I’ve really only got work for five ”
and most days
at 3:45 pm,
4 pm,
4.10 pm,
give each a task he knew would last
60 minutes, 45 minutes, 30 minutes
finish was 4.30 – no one dared.

Raised voices and sarcasm
spite and condescension
easy, understood
fire can be put out, or evacuated.
The cold was worse he said
frigid?
Off the scale – would need its own index – frightening.
Three bedroom house
two adolescents – no alternatives
combatants must share.
Sometimes he wondered
if dawn would arrive, motherless, fatherless, orphaned.

Common sense finally prevailed
over neighbours,
workmates,
friends, congregation members judgement.
Divorce – till death do us not speak
until the older brother’s wedding –
parental duty: family photograph.
Hello Gerald
hello Susan
click, exhale.

No reprise –
death had intervened before his own nuptial
leaving only his mother. It was a relief.