My Father's Cardigan

 My Father's Cardigan

For twenty years I kept

your old black Prince Casual cardigan

on a wire hanger in my closet.

Lean old man, collapsed

marathon swimmer and

commander of no fleet

you were sixty-five.

I still have the photograph

in which you stand

helpless, alone in the house

beside a sink of dishes

in the yellow kitchen your wife painted.

You filled an entire suburb with smoke

and your butts burned black crusts

onto the glass lips of the ashtrays.

Unremitting, you were 

the passive enemy of efficiency.

As usual, you appear in sharp contrast

to the hectic decor; aquatic copper jelly moulds,

cheerful wallpaper and durable plastic fruit

as you gaze out of the kitchen window

over the neighbours' carport into nothing.

Just after Hallowe'en you died

leaving a bowl of stale candy

in the empty hall, in the empty house

for the long-gone children and their ghosts.

It was too much for all of us.

Donna Dunlop