snapshots

My first memory is and always has been
Of my only birthday when it wasn’t raining hard
And September was still a summer month.
I’m wearing a red and green plastic stethoscope
In a beer garden we didn’t know was rough at the time
And I am listening to the heartbeats
Of locals trying to eat their pub grub.
I remember the feel of my dad’s cotton vest when I sat on his knee,
The lipstick stain on the sleeve of Mum’s very ’80s spotted jacket
And the way her neck smelled when I pressed plastic to skin

Another very early one is of looking for the milkman
From the window of our rented house at 6am
While Dad hoovered slug trails off the wool carpet
We still have now. I’m kneeling on a chair
And we are both in thick dressing gowns

There’s the memory of my mum and me in
Bournemouth and she’s helping me to balance
On the sea wall, holding my hand

There’s me and my friend eating crackers on a rock in the Lakes

***

Last year, I opened a photo album I’d found in the loft
And saw a picture of my brother
Pressing a blue and green toy thermometer to Mum’s ear
My dad sitting opposite with a young brown face
And a thin white vest

There’s one of me drinking milk in a dressing gown
While Dad hoovers a carpet I don’t recognise

Mum and me on Brighton beach

My friend and I sharing Soreen in the park

***

Same faces if a little distorted,
Same angles on the prints as in my head,
Not memories, but fabricated snapshots of life

Painting by Rose Rowland, age 14