Wheeling like a boxer
Her father appeared again
At our bedroom door
In cardigan and pyjamas,
Poleaxed with pills and Christmas
Eyes peeled heavenwards
In the manner of St Jerome
Curses jump from his tongue
Like gassed partisans
Bollocks! he cries out in Catalan
Bollocks he whispers to his hand
Bollocks said the clown
He slaps away in slippers
For another endless piss
Into the laughing toilet
Then a sepia hour of sleep
The radio crackling with
The marches of guardsmen
In the bedside drawer
Under the keys and lighters
Still wakeful, curls a dull Luger
Loaded since Franco’s death
Mark Fiddes 