for my grandfather
You were an odd sight: efficient and pasty-skinned
in the land of perpetual sunbathers. Your only talk
talk of dogs and money, their similar grease and stink.
You disliked the sea; love was an invisible coastline,
difficult, inaccessible. You preferred mountains:
Teutonic altitudes, dug-outs, old shells. You had one
overruling obsession, the war, the Second World War;
the one you missed out on: ‘too young’. Unfazed
you brought it home, your own home. Your enemies:
your Hausfrau and two children. They, unlike soldiers,
were never allowed to surrender. Films on Rommel,
your hero, electrified your old frame. Somehow despite
having read his letters, you overlooked Krieg ohne Hass.
No quarter! When senility put you before its tribunal,
they offered you life (with limitations). You refused.