Well-Worth Mentioning (Poetry)

Depressing weather
as greyness recalls
spitting coal fires streaked
condensation’s walls
in isolation

The seasonal plague
and down we all went
struck like an axe blow
as though in Egypt
the whole street suffered

My parents and me
kept warm in one room
soup rations and bread
delirium ruled
the radio said

how the death toll rose
so bitter outside
yet my father trekked
to the shed and back
with scuttles of coal

When I think now of
the effort that took
heroics unseen
our family’s debt
so seldom mentioned