Dad

Hey Dad
thought I’d write you a note
say thank you for the things you taught me
how to yell until you were blue in the face
when the electricity bill came
and you went around flicking switches off
mumbling under your breathe about the cost of things
and how money did not grow on trees
how the average working person
spent more than their forty hours in a steel box
with no windows
no overtime
no public holiday pay—
in summer sweat permeated every pore
and you couldn’t even stop for a drink
cause the boss stood over you
with whip in hand
and how lunch was a rushed fifteen minute stand up in
the middle of an unshaded smoke laced verandah—
soggy hand-cut white bread that Mum filled with last nights
gristly
congealed fat laden chunk of lamb
tomato and a slab of tasty cheese
every night you would come home exhausted
walk through the door and wait exactly five seconds
before we’d all run from our various posts and cuddle you
and you would wrestle us all to the floor covering our faces with kisses
until Mum would call us all to attention and berate you for
your smelly clothes
dirty hands and to—
not get grease all over my nice clean walls
but that was a long time ago
and things weren’t the same
after that day
that the sweat box closed
and you didn’t tell us for over a month
until things got that bad that you came home no longer smelling
of sweat, but
of single barrel malt whisky
and kisses soon became growls
and growls became
avoiding
you
and you us—
and Mum
no longer cared about clean walls
or wrestling
but about where the next pay check would come from
and what she would tell the family at Christmas time