He never hoped for you, he never not:
it was you who gave birth to a father.

A baby, you wanted often to play
with the only friend you had all day long

but the drug of Work would pull him away
to a desk, piano, easel or stove.

If he felt you were keeping him from other
life like salt running out, he might bark

Leave me alone, in the anger of fear,
and he would feel his voice quiver your spine.

But you never stopped running to embrace
him, teaching how gratuitous is love.

Your father’s love for you, shadowed by pain,
clouded by duty, was never as free.

Yet though you’re now ‘tall as a lantern-post’,
you still sit on his knee and hug his neck;

but that he once frightened you still frightens him
should he snap Leave me alone, meaning now Don’t.