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I wrote this poem a few years ago about my Uncle Billy, whom I never met. My mother’s only brother, William Beary.  

He was only nineteen, a rear gunner with the RAF, when he was shot down.

So many people made sacrifices for us.

#Lest we forget.

Watery red ladies

I sit beneath the shelter

Where the tossing, hissing, spitting spray

Is kept at bay.

I wait with rug across my knees,

Pencil poised to tie her down with words.

Nurse wants to wheel me to the warmth,

The fuddled, stale, urine warmth.

“You’ll catch your death out here,” she says.

I smile and slowly net my memories.

I watch you unpin your hair,

Unfurling like rolls of corn- gold silk,

And peel off your scarlet chemise,

Toss it to the breeze

And step into the waves.

Words waft wistfully as you waltz in the weed

That clings to bare, salt thighs.

You perform to the sun, the crimson, orange sinking

Sun that slips between the now and then.

Tell me what you sing so sad.

Watery red lady,

You flew upon the back of your blue eagle.

He spread his wings and scooped you high

From dew-grass where Philadelphus

Sprinkled perfumed petalled confetti promises.

He lies below a bed of barley in a Slavian valley

Beneath toad-flax and corncockle.

For his King but not for you.

How soon are the young become old

And the watery red ladies dance no more,

Save in the shadows at the sea’s edge,

Tell me what I sing so sad.

Angela Petch ©

My uncle had a girlfriend. I imagined her as an old lady in a home, catching memories of the past.