If I can move to other people, have
said this about the people.
Two relatives, the first one called Cousin Sidney.
Dull as a bat said my mother of cousin Sidney,
in 1940 that time he tried to break his garden swing jumping
on his size 12 shoes.
At 15 the tallest boy in the class
Taller than loping Dan Morgan, when Dan Morgan wore
his father's top hat
Taller than a bat, said my father, when hero Sidney,
lied about his age to claim rough khaki silly ass
and soon somewhere near Dunkirk, some foreign corner
was forever Sidney though uncle would not believe it
Missing not dead, please God, please, he said
and never bolted the front door
Never string taken from the letterbox
Never the hall light off
Lest his one son came home through a night of sleep
whistling we'll meet again, Aunt crying,
and raw in the onion air of the garden
The unswinging empty swing
Her words on a stretched leash, while uncle shouted,
bloody Germans
And in November 11th two howls of silence even
after three decades
Till last year-- their last year when uncle and aunt also
went missing alas, so that now strangers have go to their door
and cut the string and no one at all, the hall so dark
waits up for Sideny, silly ass.