Lost

My communion coat got left on the bus
It is lost
My communion coat got left on the bus
And Dad is sorry
But it is lost
Someone else is wearing it now, I suppose
My new red coat

My communion coat cost seven pounds
(Granny Griffin paid)
Seven pounds!
‘And what am I to tell her now?’ shouts Mum
And she cries
And slaps my face, hard
‘You should never have taken it off!’

I remember the day my communion coat got left on the bus
Dad pawned it in the shop on Talbot Street
While I waited outside
And we never did get a bus
We walked home
And it was cold
With no coat


SG Capelli (Western Australia)

My Father’s Dying

My Father is dying.
Week by week the cancer swallows him up
so every week they have to move him
and every week the wards get smaller
and the walls close in around us

My Father is dying.
Today, he’s holding an orange, deep in thought
and no, he doesn’t want me to peel it for him
He just wants to hold it, he says,
‘I might smell it tomorrow. Maybe.’

It’s tomorrow, and my Father is dying,
and they need to move him to the hospice
but it’s proving difficult
because finally I comprehend that my Father is dying
and they need me to shut up wailing, now!
But I don’t know that I’m wailing

so I’m crying, pushing them away, shouting ‘fuck off nuns!’
as another version of me,
surprised, puzzled,
peers inside my soul,
asks,
‘What’s wrong with you? You don’t even know him’


SG Capelli (Western Australia)