My Dad roasted a chicken
that last Christmas.
Rob and I were with him and Mum
in the home at North Epping.
He, and I, as a lad,
built it 30 years before –
we used Oregon and cypress
off-cuts from frame and weatherboards
to boil our billy.
Myeloma was eating his bones,
steroids gave relief enough
for him to cook.
I couldn’t tell if his flushed face
was from the drugs or oven or us
or pleasure with his product.
Multiple impending partings:
we each were boarding
a troop ship for different wars,
leaning over rails
hanging on to streamers,
smiling and choking tears.
“Keep this as a memory,” he said
as a footnote to a short grace.
“Even a chicken roasted
in a small house is enough
to celebrate redemption.”
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