Tony

In a photographer's studio you pose.

They must have taken you to the sea 

a small boy in cut-down fireman's clothes.

Your stillness echoes their formality –

the mayor and his wife on holiday

walks on the esplanade, the golden mile

in Weston-super-Mare or Torquay

Something is absent from your face – a smile.
You were never a child. They were Victorian 
You played with lead soldiers and painted wood 

but you were never a cowboy or Red Indian.

You stole your innocence where you could.

Did you love them? There was no childhood then.

Little sailors were miniature men.

This is about my dad, Tony.