Walking Up Scafell Pike with My Father; Spock by Christian Ward

Walking Up Scafell Pike with My Father

Source: Thanks to George Bannister @georg3annister for making this photo available freely on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/Fv7St4w7a70

After walking a few yards

you breathe like someone

who has slipped across the border.

I am ahead, you are far

behind. There are no rest stops

on this rocky path to the summit,

no hedgerows to distract

our lack of common interests

or silences broken up with ums

and ers. You wear a jacket

of rain and I nudge you ahead with tuts.

At the top, there is nothing

but what a view. We are at opposite

ends of the plateau with only similar

rocks bringing us closer.

Spock

Source: Thanks to Nick Bolton @nickrbolton for making this photo available freely on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/o790hf1-rmI

He's the ideal flatmate: clean, tidy,

never drinks or smokes. Doesn't get music

but that's okay. I've learnt to stop staring

at his ears in case he grips my neck

and I collapse like laundry on the floor.

Some days, late at night, I hear him muttering

'Captain, Captain, Captain' into a shoe

and laugh to myself. Spock, fine as he may be,

doesn't make for the best company. Everything

has to be logical: call centres, mangoes, even sex.

My girlfriend says he's a pervert whenever she’s around,

that he leers at her in a strange way, as if something

is trapped under his skin and he's desperately trying

to get rid of it. Weirdo. And, if you're wondering,

never talk to him about poetry. He bloody hates it.

You can almost smell the dactyls bubbling on his tongue

as he drones on how illogical it is to describe emotion

on paper, before becoming still like a heron about to dive

into the dark of a pond it has never seen before.

Author Bio: Christian Ward is a UK based writer who can be currently found in One Hand Clapping, Spillwords, Literary Yard, Impspired, The Pangolin Review and Poetry and Places.