This poem won a ‘Commended’ award in the recent 2016 George Crabbe Poetry Competition. The competition judge, Moniza Alvi, wrote of ‘Last Orders’ “Tragic and hard hitting, I found this poignant poem compelling.” ” This is a poem with a real sense of urgency”.
Every night at seven, he shed the family skin
took off the shirt he had worn one day
washed at the kitchen sink in his vest,
the clean shirt ironed and waiting.
Not once or twice a week, but every night
he took his pristine presence to the pub
to buy and sell, or swell to sycophants,
his fat wallet earning him a throne.
He never knew his family’s evening life
wife and children watched his every exit,
the woman waited his return, alone.
He was never the worse for drink, nor better.
Sometimes he cooked a lonely midnight meal,
a selfish extension to solitary pleasures,
a skill he rarely used when the sun was up,
always curt on the creed of ‘wife’s duties’.
I map my childhood by the pubs he used:
first the Shepherd and Dog in Sicklesmere Road
where he left me one night in the car for hours.
The Rutland Arms, The Rushbrooke Arms,
The Coach and Horses, where he charged me
the cost of his petrol to drive my friend home.
‘The Moody’ at Hawstead, where I cycled
and was told never to seek him there again.
That was his last order, I took him at his word.
Memories are names of public houses.
