Zephyr

I wonder how you always find your way back home.
I’m really small, in the back seat of the Zephyr that you drive,
And we’re off to Preston, to the shops. But you went alone
That trip you never came back home from. You were thirty five.

We wandered in the wreckage of our grief for you
That hurts too much to think of, even yet.
When father met and married someone new
I felt betrayed he could so easily forget.

Which was of course unkind. With craftsman’s touch,
He was forever building stuff and moving on,
And drank, as did we all, too often and too much.
And died. I wished we’d talked. That moment’s gone.

I sometimes wonder what you’d think of how things went for me
And then recall the love. That’s what matters. That is family.

I was hugely pleased (and frankly surprised!) that this poem was in the 'commended' category in the Yeovil Literary Prize competition.

 This poem took its theme from a NaPoWriMo prompt by Jo Bell : "write about your parents in a rough sonnet. Six lines on your mum, six lines on your dad - finish with two lines on you. If you want to make it a Shakespearean sonnet, it needs to rhyme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. But I'll let you off if it doesn't. Some of you will have touched on the subject before - but it's one of the great inexhaustibles, isn't it?"