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The Poetry of
Christopher Woodall
*****
A role-reversal
by Christopher Woodall
She’s like a mother, ‘This is him at sixteen’,
It shows a grinning boy in a leather cap
Pulled over his right eye like James Dean
Impervious, astride a Triumph motorcycle.
‘That was nineteen-twenty-six’, his voice breaks.
‘Which makes you…’ I venture- ‘No! Thirty-eight’,
She cuts in again, growing scared of these mistakes,
‘I’ve had it in that frame since I was eighteen.’
Tarnished copper solid as her ambitions
Which were to drive to Wales, once as
Far as Flanders, and raise four children here
Who would not die young, although one has.
His eyes are on nothing, thick hands tapping
On the table unconsciously, smiling at the wall.
‘And this is my sister and her husband’…
But I am lost in that sixty-six year sprawl
Of revolutions and redefinitions of sex
During which time this man worked
Tirelessly for this woman who
Now corrects his memory and signs all the cheques.
*****
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