Hebden

It didn’t make me think

Of the earth-grey scar

Which smiled across her abdomen

As she inched on the clothes for work

-          Not then anyway, barely ten

And the canal and its town an enigma yet.

She made me hold her hand, taking pictures

Giving coldness back with

Bad circulation. Dad smiled underneath a Plastic mac.

To capture a sense of surprise

He’d parked the car at a distance.

Still all natural to me then

The bridges where I would hide

Uncertain why the fear would peak

Like images, through mother’s eyes.

I dragged the dirt

And them, each other

As I broke bread from towpath

Like confetti

Onto water.

Still a daughter, still impromptu

Using bread to stop the tongue

It tasted raw then, stale-fizzed, revisited

The domestic less miserable

I yelled ‘come on!’

I thought we were going to miss the town

And stay looking at this aisle forever

-          The water where we overtook

And waved at the boats still slow and pleasant.

A pantomime for other stares

We were then

But perhaps it was only I who knew

Playing at families like a gem

And the chimney ahead was treasure

Not a ‘view’.

Like the a man who worked a lock, no keys

I tried to understand, but thought it odd

The sense of fulfilment as his body heaved

-          Parents seemed invited there to watch.

Their faces in the cold, half-touched,

The water extending, like a jetty

All day I tried to curve it with

Squeezed-shut eyes

Like wishing for time

But feeling memory.