A Daisy Chain for my Father

The curve of his spine as he sits at the table

The whisper of page as he skims his paper

The gigantic of we with me on his shoulders

The clam of his forehead clutched by my fingers

The brick of pub wall beneath my plump legs

The twist of blue salt in a crinkle of crisps

The cleft of his chin under the thin of his lips

The rise / fall of his belly through his afternoon kip

The delicate of daisies I thread to chain him to me

The snap when he wakes and shakes me away.

At 11 o’clock, my world stopped, church bells rang I turned, lowered my hand, kissed your cheek

(here, I want to say it smells of roses, but it is caked in mud and grime, tastes of ash and iron).

Blood drips from a gash in your neck. I’m not sure if you are dead or alive, I scramble scarper, clamber over the edge crawl a moonscape of barbed wire and death to (here, I want to say to a place of heavenly grasses, angels with wings, an adagio of strings).

(here, I want to write of eggs, fluffy and yellow, on toast, seasoned to taste).

I come to a street with no end and a paper cup.

At 5 o’clock, I stroll the loch shore hear a chorus of quacks and clucks grunts and honks of waterfowl

Out of the blue comes a drumroll I raise my eyes see a line of whooper swans in the sky beating a path one by one as they come to land each swan spreads her wings and taking a vertical stance halts her flow of light her neck straight head held high feathers stretched wide and, for an instant in the gloaming flight each bird transforms into a Celtic cross poised in glory mid drops of water then folds on the lake like origami and sails away a ghost

Lorraine Gibson is a Scottish Australian poet and writer living in regional Australia. Since retiring from her work as a Cultural Anthropologist she has been drawn to writing poetry. Her poetry appears in journals, anthologies and magazines including: Meniscus, The Galway Review, Hecate, Eureka St, Prole, Live Encounters, Backstory, Brushstokes III, Poetry for The Planet, Booranga FourW, Book of Matches, Tarot, and Last Stanza. In 2023 she was shortlisted for Calanthe Press Open Poetry Prize. Lorraine has a PhD. in Anthropology from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her book ‘We Don’t Do Dots: Aboriginal Art and Culture in Wilcannia, New South Wales’ is published in the UK by Sean Kingston Press.

I wish I looked how I feel you said, Real black black enough to stand on one leg wearing a cock rag waving a spear at all these culture vulture seeking tourists. What do you mean?

I said. You wouldn’t understand you said—enough —just black enough.

Winter-ice portends more tedium. An evening’s inner-city snow is growled-down by bitter cold. Liability has again thrust burdens onto supplicant hands. Back street leaves shiver through ginnels and snickets. I sent the invitations you did not receive. So sorry to leave you choking down your hubris. Like many vulnerable humans the answer to guilty or not is constantly shifting.