A few forgotten objects Dad passed on:
copperplate pens with long nail nibs,
still stained black, one coal-fire red,
laid to rest
for twenty years in the shed’s office chest;
a Monopoly set
yanked by a seaman uncle from his sinking merchant ship
U-boat torpedoed
at the beginning of the second world war,
but minus the board;
the pine green balsa houses, the pink prim hotels
strewn on the field of our living-room floor,
much else that was yours:
the board, this uncle and your gambling father,
we never saw.
And the chess pieces we played and played;
of our two wooden box sets, the best
hand carved, you varnished and weighted with lead.
The black knight like you
could lose its head.
The post Black Knight appeared first on The Spectator.
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