Poem Of The Week: Last Christmas Cracker By Steven Matthews

Last Christmas Cracker

From the last Christmas cracker I pulled ever
with dad, it seemed there flew not just the golf-tees
I will never use, but my yellow kite
the line broke from, and the wind wafted
into the tall oak where he climbed to get it;
my blue wooden yacht which grounded itself
in the middle of the council boating lake,
where he waded barefoot through the sludge
to restore it sodden to the concrete shore;
the garage window I broke one Sunday
learning to curve a shot round the linen post;
then, in a terrible rush, all the things
in the future he will not ever set
to rights, now that he has gone away.