Dead Dads Walking

The original Baricco is God knows where
in some State, boxed;squashed against
mildew-spotted flotsam n jetsam. Here a

new old one has its frontispiece half title ill
ustration torn/gone. But for 25p? Holds
value as symbol once for eyes' fusion
along silk roads.

This is usual: stuff cram-packed such as
snot cracked in crumpled man handkerchiefs
desiccated heaps on the stairs. Old fivers
hidden under snooker-baize green utility

carpet. Thread bare. Glass so old it'd
resorted to a barely perceptible fluid~
self thicker at pane base and further
squeezed atomically thinner by freeze

and me-an'-my-sister breeeathing
hoar into a room incapable of more
warmth. Life done in weeks and little
pencilled lists giving us their bottom

lines.
Drawing blood from stones. Neighbours
donating dogs' bones. Fridays always on
loan til them readies came.

Don't tell me this entices steps to be taken.
It all hasta get put away some place.
Everything is a stopper threatening
to shphut malcontents onto an 'I've just

cleaned I've just cleaned that! Floor!'
mother shouting her anthem. That's
what Daddy delivered for.
A clean house.

What we were supposed to hush to,
support, make tea on be-
half of, cower.
And where's his ghost now?

Showin' up in my American lover,
all civility and how I'm sposed to be
and anything psychological is
suspect

and what generation X is about
and what his generation just
missed and how he's not gonna be no
decreasing economic asset are you?

A very-very clean carpet
and an attention-neurosis worth its weight
in a godzillion dog hairs.
Perfect mastery of gravy probably.

I look back over years of dinners.
I see there was no sex education.
Even later when I learnt how pipes
and osmosis and plateau-zzz worked.

No red on a tampon box and parts
missing in the diagrams like a
Maid-in-Taiwan cheapy.

Where oh where am I?
Serving you up a perfectly
cooked ego.
You forbid scrambled. OK.

Daddy's ghost stalks my halls.
You set about completing your life
without me.
Good.

Two of you walk