Queer Child

My Dad Is No Communist, Although

my primary school teacher was very interested in the professions of our parents.
one forenoon that looked like november, during a subject we'd baptised sachkunde,
insufficiently translating into general studies and neither being sociology nor chemistry,
children chair atoms founded a benzene ring union.

there were tilers, construction workers, plenty of cashiers and people who repair your dishwasher,
never a dentist or lawyer because our school was right next to the town's colliery.
my dad is a secret member of a secret union of angry ex-miners, though he is no communist.
The Times Have Changed is his favourite song to sing throughout his thirteen-hour days
of being a lorry driver, which are the days he loathes being. and they would fire him if they knew of this secret union
of angry ex-miners, though my dad is no communist. he just likes the rattling of coal wagons
because a too-loud rattle once was the rails' cry for a mending, a cry for him,
for his calloused fitter-fingers and the soothing light attached to his blue helmet.
because, in return for this fatherly charity, one rattling wagon was alright with him jumping in
and proceeded to save him from a mine fire.

now, like a broken bird suffering from black lung, he sings the same elegy from am-monday to pm-friday.
there's no singing on weekends because saturdays are for sleeping and no-one wants to hear your voice on sundays.
Oh, How The Times Have Changed, How I Wish To Sleep Longer Into The Monday Than Two AM,
How I Miss The Involuntary Martyrdom Of A Canary Bird, Dropping-Dead From Its Skinny Bar
When The Mine Confessed Sloppy Pottery Work
And Carbon Monoxide Started Leaking Into The Boiling Air.