Memories

I looked at me,
bathed in blood and sticky stuff
in the muscular arms
of someone I knew perhaps, then.
My dad, I suppose.
No picture of him
for me to see.
He died the next month
in a car collision.

As I flipped
the next page, I saw me
dressed in a pink frilly dress
with a party crown
that said ‘First birthday’.
There is a hand around me
in a loving embrace
which I take it to be my mother’s.
Her face is hazy.
She never got
to see me grow up.

There was the boy,
(possibly my first boy friend)
in blue jeans and white shirt
cuddling with me
on the beige leather sofa.
I think he was ‘John’
(or was it Dick?).
I was always
very popular with boys .

This is my husband,
carrying me, dressed
in a ravishing white,
to the car
on my wedding day.
‘Oaf, you are sexy but heavy’,
he had teased.
He had blonde hair
and his skin looked smooth,
like the peaches
that we loved to eat.
His million dollar smile
has now receded
into his laugh lines
and frail freckled body.

It is my kid and me
standing in the hot sun
on the day of her graduation.
She looked stunning
in that black coat,
like a fairy
mistakenly dressed in black.
I remember distinctly,
her kissing me
and whispering,
‘I have done it mom.’
Wish she had not
got into the army.

The album slipped
out of my hand.
And when I looked
at the hospital bed
next to me,
my hubby dear,
was breathing heavily.
He is all alone now,
as I fell silent.