Photograph

Here’s the photo I took

Last year on the beach

Dad, wearing the tie

I bought him for his birthday

Billy drinking lemonade

The straw up his nose

And Mum, huddled up in her coat

Against the seaside wind

Now Dad’s in France

And our beach is covered in concrete

And tangled barbed wire

And land mines

In case the Germans invade

But on that day

We’d just made

The world’s grandest sandcastle

And watched the tide

Rush in

Filling the moat

Gradually washing

The sandcastle away