Your Love of Vibrancy

A junior school child amongst wax crayons,
felt tips, playschool cousins,
I drew a toy troll for you. You waited patient
as a hedgehog hibernating through winter
but still a smaller hand snatched.
Let her have it, she’s younger than me.

We talk of your My Little Pony trainers
with red flashing lights. How your chubby fingers
could fasten secure the pink laces fifteen years ago.
A glitter-specked silver toy horse galloped
Nan’s kitchen table with the rhythm
of your favourite tape, sung in stunning harmony.

Seven, you squinted chocolate brown eyes,
until, you made believe the grey concrete estate
was a paddock of some greener pasture;
imagined my senior school back was your saddle,
to ride the far horizon. We both fell at that last fence
before we were home and dry:

You were crying and I, as you say,
had the strangest mixture of sobbing and laughing
blotting my lips. We compare silken scars
on flesh otherwise so similar. Home, once more,
in your own flat, you flick through your Art folder’s
plastic wallets: a mixed relief collage of Marilyn Monroe,

more vibrant than Warhol, then your monotone
blood cells, you discuss Frari's Basilica
and Mattisse’s use of colour, your hands shake now, 
impatient for treatment that’ll never come,
I squint my eyes, imagine you on my saddled back,
Hoof prints set into concrete now, like memories.

Reviews

[Judy Ponceby]

You say so much here Sel without saying it. Heart rending and yet the beautiful memories. Very touching and written with love. :)

[Rossen]

Unlost in translation, with you on this~

[Donald Meikle]

I wish I could write the unwritten unspoken as well as this Sel

[Neva Flores Smith - Cha..]

Soul touching..........It has to be terrible beyond words to see someone you love deteriorate before your very eyes and there is nothing you can do but try to remember how things were.......beautiful piece.

[Ed Hart]

you do this like no other...so powerful, so 'immersed', my heart held

[Emily B]

oh, Sel . . . my fingers tremble to type words after I read this, it is heart-wrenching, stunning, exceptional work