My feet were always too big for vintage shoes
granny said
girl you’re outgrowing your ancestors
measured my 1980’s girth with pokered face
disgracing corselet historians with modern gait
I never was the black-eyed-girl of my father’s heart
his own ungainly DNA bore him a chip off the old block
who knew his self-loathing would rub free like lint
on the broad shoulders of imperfect kin
you’ve no delicacy in your frame girl
your hands are too wide for these kid gloves
you cannot fit into the stays and confines of the past
where did you come from? changeling?
half and half in one world and the next
part girl part boy part aberration an inverse
it was easier to steal a pair of dungarees
climb the old knobbly willow tree
dropping apple pips in indigo pond
a disappointing girl with one eye patched lest it wander
I saw my delicate mother and her child’s form
rush like a dancer into applauding future
gone from those who would love her best
she left a horse hair brush that smelt of her skin
and I did not know what to be
standing there with my unliked shell of pallor
a mockery of fallen relations between two lovers
retreating to the verge of attention their child
I waited until nobody expected me home
muddied, stained and bramble scratched
children with no reflection
if you asked me then whom I loved the most
I would have pointed to the owl
grand in his luminous white feathers
for he saw the little girl’s disappointment
and together they sang
low into night
to beckon timorous vole
closer
TheFeatheredSleep 