Holidaying with Dad During the Divorce
His car is a nervous breakdown,
scattering chrome along the motorway.
He gasps through panic attacks
in tunnels and medieval towers.
The falconry display goes on regardless
and eejits in velour have a crack
at each other with plywood lances.
I’m in fugue state, headphones glued
to me as mum calls to accuse him of kidnapping.
Come for a drink, he says.
No. Retreat to the Travelodge,
dry my one pair of decent flares
rancid from days of rain,
in the mysterious trouser press.
My anger flits and shifts
like a clot of starlings.
He presses into my hands
some Günter Grass,
and Sylvia Plath—
time-capsule messages
in a language we don’t share,
and the evening heaves
with the bellow of cows
taken from their calves.
