Bearhugs

Whenever my sons call round we hug each other.

Bearhugs. Both bigger than me and stronger

They lift me off my feet, crushing the life out of me.

They smell of oil paint and aftershave, of beer

Sometimes and tobacco, and of women

Whose memory they seem reluctant to wash away.

They haven’t lived with me for years,

Since they were tiny, and so each visit

Is an assessment, a reassurance of love unspoken.

I look for some resemblance to my family.

Seize on an expression, a lifted eyebrow,

A tilt of the head, but cannot see myself.

Though like each other, they are not like me.

But I can see in them something of my father.

Uncles, home on leave during the war.

At three or four, I loved those straightbacked men

Towering above me, smiling and confident.

The whole world before them. Or so it seemed.

I look at my boys, slouched in armchairs

They have outgrown. Imagine Tom in army uniform

And Finn in air force blue. Time is up.

Bearhugs. They lift me off my feet

And fifty years fall away. One son

After another, crushing the life into me.