cold war (Berlin)
he has told the story often
enough
around the age of five Christmas time
he was losing faith in Father
Christmas
snow fell that Christmas Eve
on RAF Gatow
his dad was elsewhere
eavesdropping on Soviet plans
for troop movements over the Yuletide
celebrations
and his mum took him out onto
the balcony to see Santa in his sleigh
being slowly driven around
the streets of the camp
leading to the urgent
declaration
“I do believe I do”
his mum told him this
story her truth of it
made it a memory over time
music was added carols the
sleigh stopping
just yards from their flat
and Santa waving waving
to him and the flakes of snow
grow fatter and thicker
falling and settling
and covering his tracks and he
did believe
later years slow then the rachets slipping days to decades
when they talked his sister
and he and he said Dad …
his sister stunned at the
idea that his mum their mum his dad their dad
and it was her mum and her
dad and the remembering and experiencing
and remembering the
experiences and experiencing the remembering
were all topsy-turvy a turvy-topsy truth of who was good and who
was bad
a mummery of the time and
place the shaken and the stirred the decayed
and the Russians moved their soldiers
here and they moved them there
(but mum’s the word)
