Shards Picked From Memory

A cornfield opening to the summer wind Brow to brow with a Clydesdale, breathing in its sweat The ticking of my parents many clocks An empty lap, the pain of losing a pet A gecko soft shoe shuffling up a temple wall That hare, dead on the road, bright eyes gouged by crows Slug spit along the sliver of a holly leaf That rhododendron bush that grows and grows Red Admiral opening her fan on a black poppy A host of birch trees holding up the sun Harvest barley whispering to the woodlands My infant son who smelt like a toaste bun A lover's touch, by moonlight, in a hayloft Two purple clouds that streaked Sri Lankan skies The metronome that conducted my piano scales A calf being herded to slaughter, its terrified cries One snowing day that quilted downy dykes Ophelia floating on her water bed The door that opened out to empty air Walking through Auschwitz over the ash of the dead A free range hen that pecked me, protecting eggs A ploughed field after rain, glinting like gems A blue balloon that skimmed a roller coaster Mother stitching up my home made hems The shroud of sand that buried a toy boat When hope like a beanbag suddenly hit the deck Thin curtains billowing out like pregnant girls Sour Christmas, a clammy turkey's throttled neck Sycamore seeds that twirled down like spitfires Answering the phone to a dead aunt's urgent voice Autumn rusting on creaking hinge The night death gripped my father in its vice Childhood swinging high to touch a cloud That huge Canadian robin in its xxx ketchup vest When lust like a clogged pipe mortified the flesh That snake bite I drank in my teens. Such zing. Such zest A tower in Toronto, shining like top notch dentures When I knew that I was the luggage that carried the family genes Parsley, sage, rosemary, elderflower and thyme The day that pupil went gaga, smashing my tambourine