Keeping Mum

At nine years old
she’d never had a chance 
to know her father.
Not to know about his life,
his personality,
or his dreams,
Only that he loved her
and had been frail and ill
all her life.
“She never even asks how her father is”,
said her mother’s friend disapprovingly.
Her mother must have told her that.
“They won’t tell me, so there’s no point
in asking”, she thought.
No!
I think she said!
They wouldn’t tell her why 
he was in hospital.
They wouldn’t tell her why
he died,
not at nine years old,
not until years later
when they were all dead
and more voices could speak.

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/27/poetry-from-lynn-white-inspired-by-sylvia-plath-anne-sexton/