Parents

by Robin Fulton Macpherson

The one enigma never
ever appeared in a dream.
There might have been dreams when she 
was present but I wasn’t.
If I had been there, briefly,
I wouldn´t have been noticed.
She hummed ‘Child in the Manger’
and often sighed ‘C´est la vie.’

The other enigma came
and went like a familiar
as the years became decades.
We both seemed to be present
but in some dreams one of us
was ‘absent almost present.’
Neither knew which it could be.
His Harris Tweed sleeves were rough.