Frozen Sea

First thing I remember

I'm looking out at the snow

In some English seaside town

People out on their front steps

Laugh smoke cigarettes

Look out at the frozen sea

Say it ain't happened here since '23

I go down into the kitchen

Strange man in a uniform

Holds my mother hand she kisses his cheek

My sisters all down at his legs

Hug and call him pa

He reaches down lifts me in his arms

Puts a silk ball cap on my head says Vietnam

We go down to see the frozen sea

My sister on her crutches father and me

The boats they lay upon their side

 In Margate harbor at low tide

We go down to see the frozen sea

Braces and crutches

My sister climbs the ramp

Into the c-130 cargo plane

Two airmen get to their feet

Lift my sister in the air

Put her in the seat

Between the two of them

My sister laughs my mother still looked grim

We flew out across the English sea

Over southern France across the Pyrenees

To an airfield just outside Sevilla

La Guardia they greeted us

My mother muttered fascist under her breath

50 years later again at Margate Bay

I’m in the JMW Turner Gallery

Someone lights a cigarette

Ma’am you can't smoke that in here

It was the artist Tracy Emin in the flesh

In the main gallery her famous bed

We went out across the Margate high street

Into the old market for Cornish pasties

My sister bummed a cigarette

We went back out into the sleet

And the sky was like a JMW Turner painting