Sons

The Poem:

Sarcastic sons slam front doors. So a far door slams and I think of Cardiff outskirts where, once, captured acres played at being small tamed gardens: the concrete way roads supplanted grass, wild flowers, bosky paths.

I was like that; also like those new semis that seemed ashamed, their naked windows slashed across by whitewash. At the frontier of Nowhere order and chaos clash. And who's not lived at the frontier of Nowhere and being adolescent was both prim and brash?

Strange a London door should slam and I think thus, of Cardiff evenings trying to rain, of quick dark where raw brick could hide, could dream of being ruins where ghosts abide. Still, spreading lamps assert themselves too early. Awkward Anglo-Welsh half town, half countryside.

Son, you are like that and I love you for it. In adult rooms the hesitant sense of not belonging quite. Too soon maturity will switch off your night, thrust fake electric roots, the nameless becoming wrongly named and your savage darkness bright.

Content: