Studio Portrait

My uncle in his uniform,
dog-collared, briar
clutched at an angle,
brilliantined hair
with a central parting,
très debonaire.

This could have been central casting
for the role of padre
in a West End show,
his Now let us pray
moment, except that he’d left
for war the next day.

He returned to be vicar
of several parishes,
a warrior in mufti,
modest, diligent, but no less
the charmer of that portrait
in his trim battle-dress,

and seldom without
the starched shine
of a collar’s halo
around his neck, put on
each morning, still not a little
glamorously worn.