Nana’s in intensive care

Dad goes up everyday
sits beside her bed
Mam makes meals and smokes
Paddy won’t catch Frankie’s eye
Frank’s still chewing over what Dolly said
everything’s topsy turvy
and he can’t ask anyone why.
Frankie writes in his diary
before he goes to bed,
he goes to the cupboard and reaches in
pulls out the hidden book, soft
and secret in his hands. He takes the gel pen
and begins:
I’m not sure what to write.
In my family we don’t write in diaries
we don’t talk about private things
we don’t think about words or poems
no-one reads anything longer than
a newspaper.
He likes the look of his black handwriting on the cream page
it is careful, definite, important:
he closes it and hides the book again.