And What Of Families For Some Of Us? Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

And what of families for some of us:



I am the remnant of a father

who died before I was born:

There was a fair man

Who had tried to parachute -

He lived for a few minutes.



I was told by my mother

That she drank a bottle of gin

With nutmeg

And had a hot bath to ease me away:

‘You were meant to be born', she said.



Come my infant bath time, she would say:

"Just because you have a little tassel

It doesn't mean you can rule the world".

It was never what I wanted -

Sons are the anchor of a mother's life.



And when I was a teenager

She came home

After a session of gin and tonics

Muzzling my half-sleep with a French Kiss:

I can still taste the lipstick.



In terror of my failures,

I waited in utter unredeemed dread

For my Final Year results. She said:

"If you had worked harder

You would have got a First".



I asked her to read

‘I'm OK - You're OK',

And she wrote some post-it notes

That were there when she returned the book.

One said: ‘Not everyone gets damaged -



The strong survive'.