Punchbag

Ah used tae join in even,
when Ma was launching into him,
thought he was shan, weak, pathetic,
an empty shirt blown in the wind.

She’d be aw smiles ootside the hoose
but inside it would all kick off.
It was later I began tae ken
a punchbag has a strength enough,

a braw courage to absorb
that anger hurled day after day
and hold safe frae the ricochet
my sneering sisters and me.

It’s only now I ken
that accepting the jags and burling shoves,
just as the need tae inflict them,
show a girning kind of love.

- Simon Jackson
Third Prize Winner, The TRYangle Project Poetry Competition 2011