Raymond Antrobus
Arose
Arose
My father called my mother Rose for short.
Once I asked him how it ever worked out
between them. The sex he smirked, the sex
was that good. I was twelve, and betrayed. But
I’d seen him in my mother’s garden that
summer, growing sunflowers. I’d seen him
paint all the walls in her house and my mother
chose the colour. I’d seen him bend by
my mother’s bicycle, mend her tires, rock
his head to a record she was playing and ask her
if he could borrow it. I’d seen the way
he walked down the street grinning with
new music. Once I’d seen him stand behind
my mother’s market stall when a woman held
up a necklace my mother made, and ask him
how much it was, and he turned to my mother,
said Rose? And he said it like something in him
grew towards the light.
