People with sore memories

are getting fussed up

because they are letting

a war criminal into the country
and suddenly the need to talk about yourself has flared

though you hate confessionalism

and you do not really know what you think

or who you are

or what has happened to you
This is the unanswered question.

Do you affirm or deny?

My great grandfather was chief rabbi in Leeds

and my mother still says there aren’t Palestinians only Arabs
there were always aunts and uncles you were always supposed to be

ringing up, or seeing, or sending letters to

who were going to be mortally offended

and hangers on who came to my father’s funeral

still blocking me in my grief
you complained that relationships were supposed to mean something

but they didn’t see it that way

because everything hinged on hypocrisy

and anyway they wanted you to suffer like them
yet we all laughed like mad

when Carmel gave the cousins her own recipe

and pretended it was

the Fullers’ walnut cake they’d just been eating

and liked so much

because it wasn’t kosher and they never guessed
the same walnut cake with the frosty icing

you ate in the cafe in Manchester

every week as a treat after your violin lesson

and before you got on the train
where you read to pass the time

until the lights went out in the tunnel

and left you shaking in darkness