The C-word

My father was a communist
I always knew when he'd lost his job
Because he'd pick me up after school
Still in his work boots and overcoat
Clamped against the cold

And dink me home on his bicycle
The Johnson twins laughing and
Making faces as they passed us in the car
Mrs Johnson yelling from the front
Don’t stare, don’t stare!

And I would play boy in the crow’s nest
Perched on the handle bars
Face in the biting wind, calling
Pot-hole ahead! Hard to port!
Steer left!

And I'd stay up late
And while Gran wasn’t looking
He’d give me a dram of wine in a jam jar
And I’d roll off to sleep
With a vision

Of my father, the communist,
Hunched over paper in the lamplight
Wreathed in a trail of slow grey smoke
Like following
The sinking of a stone

My father was a communist
I always knew when there was trouble at the docks
By the light from the bathroom
Sharp and thin beneath the door
And the hall would fill with shadow talk
And the sound of running water

And I would lay still against the loud loud linen
And play the spy
Their words the warp and weft of gauze
And all I ever heard was Why? Why?
And Don’t you think about the boy?

And brushing my teeth for school in the morning
I’d spit my Colgate at the spatters
Of blood remained where the sink plug clung
To its tiny chain

My father was a communist
I always knew, when Gran promised the Melbourne Zoo
But told me I should clean my shoes
That night I would see him

Propped up with pillows and pricked with tubes
Eyes clamped against the oily
Disinfectant glow

And perched on the steel back of a chair
I would play the sparrow
Pondering the leg spring or wing span needed
To reach his bed in a single bound

And be the boy who wondered
If to land would hurt him
Or if I would catch his slow disease
Just for being near him

And Gran would laugh
Buckling me in to the seat of the car
No, who told you that?
You can’t catch Communism

It's not what he has
It's just what he is.

This poem appears in

Pass it Along