Willie’s 45th birthday

Today Willie would be 45. A milestone.

Perhaps Delilah and Liam would have spent the day with him. Perhaps not.

Either way I hope Delilah and Liam get to meet many of Willie’s nephews and nieces – their cousins this summer.

He’d be delighted with that.  As he would be with his kids beauty and talent.

What’s He Been Up To

Glass bottle tilted up to chapped lips
Itchy stubble tickles dry-skinned chin
Splattered rainbow-hues stain ripped jeans
Silver-tongued jests echo through the bar
Marriage dangles on a thinning string
Last night spent on a wooden park bench

Rushing water sweeps his bare form adrift
Rocky riverbed and rolling waves crash into skin
Grayed mane tangled into a mass of a mop
On the riverbank, two miles west rests folded fabric
Blood-curdling shriek pierces the air from above a bridge
Body recovered, ashes stashed in urns, secrets unburied

My mind whirls rapidly, hurling thoughts through a hurricane
A new feeling I’ve never experienced, unknown and unwanted
Is this what emptiness is? Hopelessness?
The man I yearned to meet, I can’t
l finally see his face, but still not his voice
I turn back to my mother, the only parent I know, or have
“Mom”, I hold up my phone, showing an unfamiliar face,
ls this my dad?”

© Delilah Fidler, 2017

Love you, brother – Steph