Poetry

Ten-Year-Old

Graeme Hetherington

 

One Sunday evening, exiled to
The woodshed while my mother tried,
Ill-tempered, anxious and alone,
To breast-feed her new-born, I saw

My father, jumping off the ute
Delivering him drunk from golf,
Fall down, irons spilling from the bag
I gathered up along with him.

Together on the washstand, we
Commiserated till he threw
Up on the chips. Worse than my cat
He’d drowned for shitting there, I thought,

Since Nigger at least covered it.
Inside, my sister, losing weight
And always crying, must have felt
As starved for milk, as I of love.