Sanico by Antonia Kearton

Sanico

Visiting my father, I bring peaches

from his local supermarket.

They’re reduced in price, spotted with bruises,

but rich and sweet as those we ate

in the steep meadow of an Italian summer

almost forty years ago.  We walked

down from the village – he went first,

wary of snakes curled in the long grass,

clapping his hands to scare them off.  

He says, time and again, that I disappeared,

found at last with the neighbour’s children,

at their table, eating pasta,

bright trails of spaghetti al pomodoro

smeared across our faces.

I see it still, that kitchen

with its feral cats and cool terracotta tiles,

while the mountain opposite darkens,

gathering the storm.

Antonia Kearton is a counsellor & psychotherapist, who lives in Strathspey in the Highlands of Scotland.  She has been published in various journals including Acumen, Atrium, Black Nore Review and Northwords Now.