After Poem by Bob Dellar

In the process of clearing out
my dad`s ramshackle shed-
(after he died of drink and general self-neglect;
I unlock a dark-wooded looming
old sideboard, like a safe, but not-safe,
that has haunted me since childhood.
Within is his life in no particular order.
First are photos of him as a youngster in the thirties,
round wire glasses school-boy bent;
hair bleached by the sun; tall skinny and smiling,
in old fashioned trunks;
about to dive off a wooden jetty at Canvey
before the refineries
redefined the island forever.
Then pictures of his grandad,
a stern looking London copper
in full uniform, slightly portly
with an impressive Edwardian moustache.
Next to emerge are his army service medals;
bits of lead he nicked off building sites;
letters from a Dutch girl he knew
when he was serving in Holland during the war;
bits and pieces of the old British motor bikes he loved,
as well as his favourite bike gloves.
I slip them on and hold them to my face
and their old cracked leather smell summons
a childhood flashback of me riding to school
on a BSA Goldstar, legs astride the fuel tank,
wedged between dad and the handlebars.
As I delve I come upon London Dry Gin bottles,
one after another, empty or half-empty;
I place them on the bench behind me as I go.
At the end of a day where grief was fashionable late,
I turn and face the bottles.
They are harshly lit from above by the shed`s
single bare bulb, they glow a sickly green:
there are thirty-two of them.
They look like an apothecary's lifes work,
all that`s missing is the skull and crossbones.
That night I dreamt of gin bottles.
I was seated in some kind of cell. I observed them
floating freely in the air as if weightless,
there`s a faint chink when they make contact.
My dad`s head is bobbing amongst them,
his grey eyes are calm but his jaw is set
and there`s a slight flair to his nostrils.
Dad, what`s it like being dead? I ask him.
Prick, he says.