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.