Daddy Read Dickens

Daddy read from Dickens in the green chair,
slowly and thoughtfully
in a sweet and authoritative tone.
Holding the fat green book in one hand,
he turned the thick, crinkle-edged pages with the other,
pausing over the scratchy black and white pictures
to let us look at gentlemen in tailcoats and slipper shoes,
ladies with white, mopey faces.
They were mysterious and sexy in a weird way –
sitting at table with a plate of half-eaten mutton chops,
wine in a black bottle.
The cross-hatched pen strokes
marking out the gloom and vitality of each character
like the history of rooms on a rainy day.

Jehane Markham

published in Ambit 202, 2010