JOHNSON BROTHERS LTD Poem by Rutger Kopland

In those days when my father was still big,
dangerous tools in the bulging pockets
of his jacket, in his suits the odours
of teased-out twine and lead,
behind his eyes the incomprehensible world
of a man, gas-fitter, first class,
said mother, in those days how different
my feelings were, when he would shut the doors
on her and me.

Now he is dead and I am suddenly as old as he,
it turns out to my surprise that he too had
decay built into him. In his diary I see
appointments with persons unknown, on his wall
calendars with gas-pipe labyrinths,
on the mantelpiece the portrait of a woman
in Paris, his woman, the incomprehensible
world of a man.

Looking into the little hand-basin of porcelain
dating from the 'thirties, with its silly pair of lions,
Johnson Brothers Ltd, high up in the dead-still
house the shuffle of mother's slippers,
Jesus Christ, father, here come the tears
for now and for then - they flow together
into the lead of the swan-neck pipe,
no longer separable from the drops that come
from the little copper tap marked "cold".