• About me
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    • Saints & Sinners
      • Debut novel
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      • Read the first chapter
      • Videos: filmed by Peter Vandall
      • The Hunted all over the world
      • Shane MacGowan is a man for The Hunted
  • Previous Works
    • Fact
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      • Middle-age spread
      • Family Reunion
      • A Lovely Service
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  • Favourites
    • Books
    • My Holiday Reading
    • Films
    • Book of the week
      • Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry
      • Paul: A Novel
      • If This Is A Man
      • The Catcher in the Rye
      • The Alphabet Sisters
      • Alone in Berlin
      • Child 44
      • Absolution By Murder
      • Watch Over Me
  • Blog
  • Christmas Stories
    • Love Song
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    • Underneath the Mistletoe
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    • Christmas Eve
    • Grounded
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    • The Handwriting Lesson
    • Christmas Crackers

Family Reunion

You used to be my father, I tell the broken shell
standing at the graveside
under the glare of a solar spotlight,
waiting for Cilla Black
to appear from behind a headstone.

Surprise! Surprise!

And then we will hug
like grizzly bears reunited after hibernation,
letting the years of silence
drift away across
our captive audience

but his shoulders,
crushed under the burden of caring,
do not move as he stares into the hole
where the woman
who used to be my mother lies.

Available to buy

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