Now man-to-man;
Once child and child
At play
Beneath our mother's aura;
Brothers bound in innocence –
Mother's tearful reticence was
Hiding in her smile.
Deeper hung the lead weight
Heavy in her heart
Oxidising:
The man she never mentioned
Slept between the beats.
We slept cuddled in the sheets.
We'd be older when she'd tell us that
Our father died at war –
The day the family ruptured; saw
The tired rings bless Mum's kind eyes.
Now we're grown-up brothers
Skirmishing with grown-up life.
And still the aura glows, tho' distant;
Dimmer.
Mother knows we're wiser,
Tighter
In our brotherhood of blood.
We sense it; sense her,
Sleeping
Comfy in the wood.