How come some
memories jag
fully formed,
others skedaddle
hardly registering?
Nought to do
with 'importance'.
A white polyester shirt,
small collars,
rasped my school skin
but looked cool,
basking under a v-neck.
At a friend's place,
above his mother's shop,
wagging school,
Ross, cross-legged
on bare floorboards,
playing for me
Roger Waters,
Noises from the Body.
Sitting stiffly,
wagging Modern History,
with ample Dianne,
on a floral lounge chair,
watching soap.
Picking what I now know
to be cotoneaster berries,
Bob piffing them at me,
sprung with a red
handful.
Mr Taylor unable
to find it in himself
to condemn,
shaking his head.
'You're a layabout, Morter.'
Years of tests,
assemblies, instructions,
yellow bus trips,
hitched rides,
all forgotten.
In the clearing,
snippet caught
on Spanish bus radio,
stands a boxer.
Ly the ly ...
and I'm back
in the bazaar,
with Daphne now,
the notes drifting
out through flywire
on the window
of her brother's bungalow.
Dimly the street name
even comes,
Landsdowne.
bw
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