APAD 13 prompt: a love poem
Socks
This became a morning joke:
she would ask both of us
if she could borrow a pair.
She washes them afterwards,
rolls them as she ought.
On Monday, while she was
at college, I selected the six
pairs she likes best. I put them
on her bed. From now on
they belong to her feet.
Driving to work this morning along the new bypass, I realised I have had a long-term love/dislike relationship to Melbourne, the City. So I've begun a series called A Lifetime In and Out of Love for Melbourne.
Chapter 1: 1950 - 1954
Luckily, when I was small,
I was everything and
everything was me, until
that day, the date never known,
when I became an entity, and
home showed up as a half-house
on a busy road in Ormond
where the number was 132
and I told Daddy it should be
123 (that's the right order).
He had made a number plate
for my wooden train, just
the same, and I was angry
at the inaccuracy. I was three,
at least. God, judge and separate
already. From this house
I learned to take my sister by
public bus to kindergarten.
I loved the black doll
in the pusher, pretending
I was Mum. My sister
refused to continue
because of The Pinchy Boy
but I still went, alone on the bus
several blocks, happy.
Kindergarten was in a church.
It still stands in Grange Road.
Daddy was a tally clerk,
then he studied teaching.
He had a set of printer's
blocks because before me
there was another life
making newspapers. I
loved to organise the blocks
alphabetically. Melbourne
for me then was dappled
light, Dad's knee, excited
conversations, folk music
and the Unions (which were-
like Daddy's cooking
and Mummy's ironing -
right and necessary).
NaPoWriMo
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