The Random Spillage of Love

by Ken Holland

My grandfather is dead and lost maybe more lost
Than dead having died when my mother was twelve
And who can say she wasn’t glad he died that’s not
Something I’d say but I’d say my mother said very little
To me and my brother and what little she said
Had little to do with any love for her father
Or love of her father for her and perhaps it was
Word enough that my brother’s middle name
Was where my mother sequestered her father
To keep him safely shackled in that rarely spoken
Space where the ghosted sound of my grandfather’s name
Lay silent and solitary wondering when next it would
Be fed if my mother would again slide a tin bowl
Of her cold distance into his cold hands
Hands she raised to hide her eyes, to cover
Her mouth from the random spillage of love.