Starlings

To my parents

You used to be all around me then.

But since the mid-Eighties you’ve declined.

I think of how I looked up to you.

Now it’s rare if I see you at all.

Alone in the park behind Nan’s house,

sat on swings on the greyest of days,

I’d have one of you at least in Dad’s

black onyx ring that felt so grown up.

Now I am grown, and brought full circle

by a ring to a place like the one

where you would turn against each other.

I would watch you – learn to turn away.