A few day ago, I discovered we had Papaver somniferum growing in our garden. It triggered me to draft a poem about my father, who used to grow and process the flowers for his own use. That same evening, my mother called to tell me he’d just been arrested (for his usual violent and anti-social behaviour).

I haven’t been sharing poems recently, but feel compelled to offer up this one - at least for the strange coincidences surrounding its writing. Chuppabunga was his nonsense word for poppy (opium) tea.

Chuppabunga

You used to boil poppy pods. The mash turned grey in water.
Sometimes you’d sit for eight hours drinking bitter tea,
gesticulating at the carpet;
asking why it was blue
the same way one would say of oceans
or sky.

On damp days the smell lingered thickly, like lanolin in wool.
The wallpaper spored in spring; all our clothes
stunk of seed heads, smoked sap;
stale rain swelled the windows
and rotted the seams of the house.
But you stayed,

even after we stopped sending money for gas. You stayed,
gripped to the chair with a cup of chuppabunga,
drinking as if it contained the essence
of someone else: accomplished and
immaculate; the sweet aftertaste of a man you
really wanted to be.