John Gilbert

This charcoal is not me:

sooty curls on paper thick

a blonde-combed lad

caught by the flash

of father's thick-veined hand

Scritch, scratch

a boy presumed

fabricated

in proud

parent’s eye

Now

flesh filled with years;

Queer coloured by memory

inked with the touch of lovers

lines, squat and weary

I burn this brittle

yellowed flesh

and amongst its cindered bones

is childhood

cremated

© John Gilbert, 2018