A Poem by Nicholas McGaughey

Mother Love

I must have been sixteen.
They’d met on a course in Milton Keynes:
eyes locked across the Gestetner.

She framed all the drawings he sent her
and he promised to come down soon
to air his vowels over our front room.

I’d never seen her skipping before
the morning he drove his tan Sierra
all the way down from Kent just to see her.

I didn’t mind being shipped-off to my sister’s pad,
the snaps of him starkers on the old brass bed
found amongst the photos of our holiday.

What I didn’t want to hear, in any way,
was the in-depth comparison to my father:
Martin and his bobbing St. Christopher…

doing the dirty on his missus with my mother.
All that cheek and bloody bedding.
It was the summer of the royal wedding
and the fairytale romance.

Nicholas McGaughey has new work published or forthcoming in Stand, Poetry Wales, The Ogham Stone, MIROnline, Nawr Magazine, and Best New British and Irish Poets 2019–21. His film poems can be seen on the IS&Tears and Poetry Archive websites.