Face to Face

My cheeks hang uncomfortably, side by side,
the uninvited guests who didn’t ring ahead
and now stand on the doorstep
with teetering embarrassment.
Under his impassive, gentle patient stare.
I gently grate my teeth,
the bottom lip pushed right up tight,
to a winsome grimace, my father’s face
with crooked lines of cobblers’ tacks, dangling there.
Am I unwittingly becoming him?
In sorrow, with a tear about to seep,
a buried sob-sigh draws it back
to the safety of the duct unseen.
His unsatisfactory, saddened, helpless gape.
And with the helpless concentration of next doors’ cat
himself transfixed by the staccato baton
of a squirrel’s tail,
I find myself remembering him,
Amongst the pink white gauze of hawthorn bloom

© Graham Sherwood 3/2011