Robert Handicott: My Father’s Suit and Eating Grapes

My Father’s Suit

Faithful as Greyfriars Bobby

My father’s good suit

Guards the master wardrobe.

Mum wants me to take it,

With anything else I can use,

Before the whole lot goes to the Salvos.

It’d be the right size

Like his tracksuit I’m wearing;

But a dress suit seems somehow

Too much, I’d be almost

Cross-dressing, almost

Imitating Elvis:

I’d feel “fitted up”, or

Like a hopeless cricket player

Sparkling in his whites.

I remember Dad getting into trouble

With Mum once, for hanging the suit in

The wardrobe still warm.

I wish it had ribbons and medals

Attached and I could move them all

Left to right.

Eating Grapes

The tongue, like a sheepdog, rounds up seeds

By twos and by threes, never too late—

To side-step the cantering teeth. It needs

Only a finger to lock the lips’ gate.

Robert Handicott