ANZAC Morning
Next door the old fella’s coughing.
He’s bent over the veranda rail. One hand holds the wooden post the other
touches the red poppy blooming on the lapel of his navy blazer. On the radio
Vera Lynn’s singing We’ll meet again.
When I was a child a dark passage ran
like an artery between my parents’ bedroom and mine. When Dad coughed he leaned
against the doorframe for support. He coughed and coughed, his bony chest
heaving against his cotton singlet. Mum nursed Dad, who carried a piece of the
war in his lungs. Often at night he’d wake, gasping for air. I’d creep along
the passage; breathe outside the door for him.
Sometimes I still wake in the night
and hear my father coughing. I listen when that cough recites its whakapapa. I
sprang from the desert sands in Egypt it says; in Maadi camp I wound my
tendrils into his lungs; when his battalion moved out I went with him to Monte Cassino;
I was full-grown when he came home on the hospital ship with nightmares and a shattered
hip.
Next door the old fella spits and
straightens up. His son arrives and helps him into the car.
Who holds the world up so you can crawl
out and breathe in the light-filled air?
On the radio Vera’s still singing We’ll meet again to the boys.
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