One day in May they told us you were dead,
inside a monster called Agusta Bell:
“it crashed, there was no chance — no, no-one fled,
it burned — but up in heaven, now, they dwell”.

Our Mamma froze, she gasped yet she did not
shed tears, because the three of us were so
so little, lost — or maybe we forgot
as you forget in times of hopeless woe.

I never thought I’d put this into verse…
a therapy of sorts, like moulding clay;
it isn’t something that you can rehearse,
it’s not an agony that can decay.

I’m going to be like mother, I won’t moan
and love you always, Pa, though you are gone.