Photograph Of My Father
Written by Liz Cashdan
Among the yellowing photographs in the Harrods box
Lies one of my father taken on Brighton Beach.
His peaked cap, a souvenir from Czarist army days,
Belies his sixty years and greying hair.
Beside him on the pebbles a youngish girl
Looks into his moony eyes and smiles.
Meanwhile my mother and I, on holiday in Buxton,
Struggle with steps, stairs, indigestion
And inattentive waiters.
My father came to Buxton for the last few days.
Holding his head against his hand
The tops of his fingers pushed his temple
Into folds of skin, like shells.
One week later, in Barts Hospital, he died.
They must have carried him through the courtyard,
Past St. Bartholemew the Great, its rounded arches
Supporting their aching load eight hundred years;
Past Smithfield where the hacked-up meat is sold,
Out into the suburbs to the cemetery at Bushey.