HANGMAN

By Mehran Waheed

Date night at the restaurant, cut too short

by your father's call for help. "You're kidding,"

you reply, but your face is blank, fingers

coil the cordless line. Your uncle's name

comes up, a proper noun against the rules.

You kick the doors of the elevator, jaws

that paused on our floor at the car park.

Weeping as I drive out of Toulouse,

with the willows along the Canal du Midi,

lost in thought among the dashes of barges.

The answer is too late, like the horse

that has bolted. A lame pendulum remains

behind the barn door, mercifully closed

before we arrive. The police say to wait

inside for new words: les pompes funèbres.

Photos of your sister and you hang

smiling in the dining room. Family,

steadfast in séance around the polished table,

intersperse knotted questions with gallows

humour - worthy of a lynching party.

Your father is restless however, searching

the farmhouse, the calendar, desk tidy, cabinets

and drawers for some clue, perhaps a note.

He visited his brother just that morning,

chided him on the fact that the pristine garden

had no reason to be mowed again.

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