Copyright by David Fraser

I see my papa's eyes

Weighed down

With two round stones

Smoothed by water

From the river.

My mother's tears

Drip upon my neck.

I reach across

The wooden box,

A kind of boat

Lined with my mother's shawl,

Not satin.

We'll hack at the soil

For years

To pay.

My mother's friends

Keen through rough

Scarves and fists of scars

Held close

To their mouths.

The tears flood over me,

Flow into

My father's box

Fill him up in his

Sunday suit,

My tears seep

Into the neat round

Bullet holes

In cloth

And skin.

They overflow

His coffin,

Fall as if from high

Mountains

Onto the floor

Trod thick and firm

By all our feet,

And fill the room, and

We swim

Like fish and gulp

The sadness in

Wishing we were

Brightly coloured

Birds.

Copyright 2000 David Fraser

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