Flames by Vivien Teasdale

He smells, tastes, feels shadows in the abyss:

darkness, and the sweet scent of violets.

In desolation, he retches, spewing his fear.

She cradles his shivering, bandages the burnt and violated

face, conceals his rage, feeds his hopes,

writes his anguish, helps him count the days

and catches his tears with a kiss.

This was written in thoughts of my father after the tank he commanded was blown up during the war.  Catching flames across his face, he spent the next few weeks in hospital – not knowing whether he would ever see again, until the ‘facepack’ the doctors had put on, was removed.  It smelt, he said, of Parma violets, but it worked – he temporarily lost his eyebrows and eyelashes, but his sight was saved, with not a mark on his face.  The flames had effectively sealed his eyelids together, but that had protected his sight.  He dictated one letter home to his mother during this time, written by a nurse, but didn’t tell his mother until afterwards what had really happened to him, just made light of it all. The 28th January was his birthday.