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The Photograph
How old was I then - maybe
seven or eight in grainy black
and white. I can remember
I was standing outside
my grandfathers two story
terrace house in Sydney.
Must have been around
nineteen fifty three,
school holidays.
I didn't like the smell of his place
with its old, moss coated brick walls,
the claustrophobic backyard
and the lack of sunlight.
Everything seemed dark
and damp.
I can picture my grandfather
sitting at the kitchen table
with his stooped shoulders,
wheezing away, rolling his daily quota
of cigarettes, glasses set low
on his nose, sunken eyes
peering at me below
an unkempt hedge of eyebrows.
I slept on a rickety camp stretcher
in his bedroom beneath
musty sheets and would wake
during the night whenever
he got up to pee in his pot.
It was always good to get home
to a big backyard, a wide open sky,
trees to climb and nights
undisturbed by the sound
of my dear grandfather peeing
into a pot.
Copyright ©
Paul Willason
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