Motion Sickness

Looking up at the half moon in the sky,
I see, instead, a ship's hammock, old and grey, slung
between two grey-trunked apple trees, and swaying
gently in the breeze. I sway, too, unsteady in sickness.
'The Chief', my grandfather, grips my seven year old hand,
firm and comforting, gets me to the surgery.

My grandfather died when I was eight.The next summer
the hammock frayed right down to its metal eyelets, tipping
me out into the grass. It might have been another death.