My Old Man’s Calculations.

My Old Man’s Calculations.

The South Wales Evening Post

Was a broadsheet in those days.

It gave you inky fingers

And smelled of damp pulp.

And the Old Man came home late

Smelling of the cold road

And oil.

He ate a warmed up supper

And did his calculations

In the borders with a biro

He kept in a cracked mug.

Cryptic figures,

Long divisions

Under the yellow kitchen bulb.

Concentration ploughed his huge head,

Curls greying on his smeared brow

His broad notched fingers ingrained

With the dirt of days.

He never looked pleased when he’d finished

Never satisfied

One more multiplication

As at last he sipped his tea.

Did he calculate arthritis,

Or the wear and tear on his will?

Did he ever find the number

Of the things his sums could not reveal?

Walker (2011)
© Walker & Jones 2011