My parents have come home laughing <br />From the feast for Robert Burns, late, on foot; <br />They have leaned against graveyard walls, <br />Have bent double in the glittering frost, <br />Their bladders heavy with tea and ginger. <br />Burns, suspended in a drop, is flicked away <br />As they wipe their eyes, and is not offended. <br /> <br />What could offend him?Not the squeaking bagpipe <br />Nor the haggis which, when it was sliced, collapsed <br />In a meal of blood and oats <br />Nor the man who read a poem by Scott <br />As the audience hissed embarrassment <br />Nor the principal speaker whose topic, <br />"Burns' View of Crop Rotation," was intended <br />For farmers, who were not present, <br />Nor his attempt to cover this error, reciting <br />The only Burns poem all evening, <br />"Nine Inch Will Please a Lady," to thickening silence. <br /> <br />They drop their coats in the hall, <br />Mother first to the toilet, then Father, <br />And then stand giggling at the phone, <br />Debating a call to the States, decide no, <br />And the strength to keep laughing breaks <br />In a sigh.I hear, as their tired ribs <br />Press together, their bedroom door not close <br />And hear also a weeping from both of them <br />That seems not to be pain, and it comforts me.<br /><br />Mark Jarman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-parents-have-come-home-laughing/
