John Lavan has written love poems, scary poems, and amusing poems (Bright Star, Table Mountain, Cape Town, Handicapped Son, A Birth). Today he gives us a Father’s Day poem, written, refreshingly, from the viewpoint of a father writing about his sons. More love song than tribute, this poem is a bold assertion of love from within the very real confines of the human heart. Happy Father’s Day!
Photograph
By John Lavan
In my wallet an image
walks with me–my treasure
is a photograph of sons
that winks when I open up to choose
provisions–when I use
a chocolate or fruit shop for pleasure;
to fill up my centre.
Mostly my little centre’s empty
and somehow, vacant, sad.
A place where photos (but very few)
and maybe you
could enter.
