The Friday Poem on 14/07/23
We chose ‘Photobombing Dad’s moment’ by Maggie Mackay to be this week’s Friday Poem because it paints a vivd, surreal and rather disturbing picture. The father figure looms large, conducting from the riverbank while the narrator of the poem splashes into the swirling water. There’s a kind of power play at work here, and some ambiguity over who is winning. The poem is is heavy with symbolism, powerfully drawn, and very effective.
Photobombing Dad’s moment
I am playing fiddle with the Volga boatmen.
My father conducts from the riverbank.
His baton swings like a machete.
He ignores my mother’s fit
as she slides into the sediment, wailing in fluent
Russian with a Paisley singsong.
My bow arm aches. My shoulder shrieks.
When I’m lifted onto the shoulders
of a rotund baritone, he doesn’t blink.
He’s so focused. The boatman wobbles.
I splash into the current, thrash as I sink.
My father turns, slides his glasses
down his nose, slices the air
with the machete and shouts
you can be so disappointing.
