For Les

Fancy having a granddad who died

ten years before you were born:

was he still a granddad

if I never knew him?

Fancy having a granddad

whom was a football whizz:

would I be different

for his being alive?

He just fizzled out
like empty wine -
a eucharist
for no one's tongue.

Despite all this,

I sometimes fancy

I can hear him

whispering down from heaven.

He held my elder sister,

though he never held me,

but sometimes I can feel

a soft hand on my shoulder,

a firm hand cradling mine,

my granddad’s voice

whispering Les,

echoing along my spine.