The cuffs of my dressing gown
are grimy and worn.
Not like the toil and earth
you had on your hands.
Digging up the vegetable patch.
Baby carrots, potatoes, cauliflowers.
That time when I was an English rose
blooming under your laughing gaze.
First nestled in your lap,
then sitting on your shoulders.
Bike riding through country lanes.
Hopscotching till you came home.
No.
It's from years of dishwater.
Plate after plate after plate.
Each petal wilts and falls around me.
I can only hum stories now.
Does it matter they're a whole
octave above the truth?
After all, an empty room
will always be an empty room.
So I scrub and feel the chipped shapes.
Absorb the putrid smells.
I wonder how it is
that I actually miss you Dad.
You see each time I look back
I never put my glasses on.
If I ever was a rose
You were a really bad gardener.