Margate Kent UK
KELLIE ELMORE
asks us to recall the street we grew up on
I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER
Roads were always long in those days.
Now I am old, roads have shrunk.
*
Connaught Road was very long;
The general store lay at the bottom of it.
On Sundays my Daddy would give me
Two great big silver coins
And I would walk, on my own,
Down to the store.
They sold sweets there.
I would buy some Licorice Allsorts for Daddy,
Some Chocolate Ginger for Mummy,
And whatever I fancied
(That cost sixpence)
For me.
Plus,
And this was the exciting part.....
One of the new Mickey Mouse Comics
As a treat.
One Sunday I dropped the coins in somebody's hedge.
I can remember the long walk home,
Dejected.
There were no treats that Sunday.
*
And the road seemed longer than ever.
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GENETIC MISFIT
Oh woe is me! I am recessive. Soon to disappear from the scene.
For I'm a walking, talking, living, breathing but truly recessive gene.
I look like a human-being, but that is just an act;
Nature hasn't thought me worth preserving. Isn't that a sorry fact.
I am the mother of two children, but they don't resemble me.
I remember giving birth to them, but there's no similarity.
Nature has found me wanting. I'll disappear without a trace.
No-one will ever say, fondly, 'The daughter has her Mother's face.'
They are dark, whereas I was mousy, they are beautiful, where I was plain.
Their faces are completely different; they have a different type of brain.
Both of them are modest people; I'm a show-off, I admit;
They just do not resemble me the tiniest little bit.
To think I waddled round all fatly, and then went through the childbirth stuff,
Then nurtured them both for eighteen years. Wasn't that enough?
No, 'the survival of the fittest' has simply cut me out,
I find I'm having to ask myself 'What's Motherhood all about?'
I suppose it doesn't matter. I suppose I shouldn't care
That descendents, looking at photos, may say 'Who's that woman there?'
Oh woe is me! I am recessive. Soon to disappear from the scene.
For I'm a walking, talking, living, breathing but truly recessive gene.
*
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1 comment:
You just reminded me of many stories my grandmother used to tell me. The way you refer to your father as "daddy", sounded so much like her. Thank you for reminding me of a woman who was such an important person in my life. That means more than you could know.
Also, I like the ending line about how long the road seemed. I remember when we first moved into my grandmas house, she had just bought it and we came to look through the windows into the empty living area. It seemed so huge then, like a mansion. What beautiful memories you evoked for me. Thank you!
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