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Stains
These clothes have stains on them
blemishes of years, of my childhood
neither detergent nor looking the other way
erases them. In pride or with fits
of self pity I wear them. My stains.
The day I saved a cat from drowning
its foot was trapped in an ice crack
while it was fishing on the frozen lake
the crack parted and we both fell in
I lost a gumboot but the cat survived
Waterlogged and shivering, reaching home
father ordered me back to fetch the boot
but it was gone; he walloped me with his belt
he was like that; if you didn’t eat your cauliflower
at dinner he would say you’ll get it for breakfast
Once my sister and I climbed the few meters
up from the yard to living room-kitchen balcony,
arriving first I offered an arm to pull her up
but our grip loosened and she fell down in a heap
Tearfully she picked up a garden trowel and
threw it at me. It cut a gash in my forehead
which mother bandaged, chastising me after she
had ascertained that sister had not been harmed
My red money box shaped like a British
red mailbox had a key which my parents kept.
Disappointed with my meager pocket money, I took
a hammer, broke it open and bought twenty silver whistles
My best stain was earned when a friend and I discovered
that tickets to the fairground could be purchased in rolls
from the stationers. Cheerfully we visited the tombola stall
numerous times carrying home armfuls of penknives,
teddy bears and packets of liquorice allsorts which we ate
smiling with sticky black lips and teeth in the cellar
underneath the back of our house
My stains. If I had the choice, I would earn them again
© Johnmichael Simon
2014
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