IN GRANDDAD'S HOUSE.

A BOY AND HIS GRANDDAD'S WAR BOOK.

In Granddad’s house was a book on World War
2 tucked in the bookshelf between garden

Books, tuppenny thrillers and Gran’s Mrs
Beetons. Inside were photographs of bombed

Cities, Spitfires and a Messerschmitt
And Hitler with a raised hand. You don’t want

To read books like that, said Gran, nothing but
Silly men doing silly things, and she’d

Carry on knitting, tut-tutting beneath
Her breath. Granddad said nothing; his pale blue

Eyes sucked up her small talk like a sponge, her
Words like needles beneath his skin, her small

Chitter chatter, he thought, didn’t matter.
You’d open the blue book anyway,

Tripping over the big hard words like stones,
Focusing on the photographs in black

And white, the swastikas on the plane’s wings,
Hitler’s odd moustache, and burnt-out cities

In ruins and bombs and death. Why don’t you
Read a comic book, Gran said, her grey eyes

Moving over you like a cat’s rough tongue.
Granddad sighed and looked into the fire,

The flickering flames, the hot coals, and his
Memory of World War 1, trenches, bombs,

Guts, blood, death and best friends gone. You closed the
Book, put it back on the shelf between the

Mrs Beetons and the tuppenny plots
And the garden book with flowered cover,

And listened to the long-winded hum of
Conversations between gran and your mum.