The canary peeps on a nearby porch And a shy dog barks through a gate, slinging drool At us while we scrape down hot red roads that scorch The unshod kids running home from the pool. We hurry up the marble steps, thinking What a terrible fall they might make one day. We bark through a gate and there, forty-winking, Lies our Grandad and the Champs-Élysées. ‘Are you coming the pub?’ we ask, intent On the genius pocket-money-making scheme. Loose change weighing down pockets is better spent On Fanta Lemon and chocolate ice cream. ‘Have I shown yis me cactus?’ he half-snores. ‘Come in there now till I bring yis up to see.’ I poke at die-cast cars parked along the drawers, And fear he’ll leave each dusty one to me. The stairs that twist up to the patio Rattle with a precarious, loose-screwed noise That mocks the quartered Spanish prisons below, Awash with shattered tiles and muddy toys. On the sun-bleached rooftop sits his treasure. A white table holds a plant without yearning, Beyond the odd sup and the quiet leisure Of basking without fear of burning. It’s shocking just how stubborn it must be To choose this salted, fissured earth for a home While donning spines to rebuff camaraderie; Determined to bear this desert alone. I have long assumed the cactus still stood On that hot roof with persistence absolute, Because I didn’t think a force on Earth could Shunt that thing from its barely watered roots. It’s nice to imagine it’s still alright, But I don’t know how long cactuses live for. I think it lost that stubborn war with sunlight. I think I should have visited it more.
A Little Bit about the Poem
I had thought my Grandad would be the outlier in moving to Spain in his later years. And yet, I don't think there's a retiree in Torrevieja that doesn't know him.
I'm not sure if he had the cactus for more than the two weeks we happened to be visiting. But for some reason, we thought owning one was the coolest thing possible when we were younger. For that reason, I might have imagined its residency on the roof to be a little longer than it truly was.
As of posting, this is my most recent composition. I used to be able to write a poem a day, cracking them out on the bus home from college in quick and easy common mere, drumming out The Sickbed of Cuchulainn on my knee to make sure it scans. I wrote an awful lot of shite this way.
Nowadays, I want to write something a little sturdier, something where Champs-Élysées is a valid rhyme (How good was that?). I have to sit on an idea for a few months at times before I'll act on it unfortunately, and what I do write is often for my girlfriend's eyes only. If you want to see those on the site, you had better start sending flowers. Otherwise, please sit tight while I think for a bit longer.
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