Birth Certificate

Yellow
Not of age
Red print
Not in celebration
A lie
Why?

This is not my birth certificate

No one knows what time

Day or night
I was pushed into this world
No one knows
Where I was uncurled

The Hong Kong birth certificate is blue

Written in English and Chinese script
A certificate of abandonment
Of loss
Recording where I was left
What condition I was in
How I was dressed

They guessed about a good many things

Where I’d been born
My age

Like leaving goods at a pawn shop in the hope of better times

The pawnbroker knows
Times seldom get better for those who part exchange their valuables
Tickets rarely get redeemed
Owners never usually get reunited with their precious items
The goods get passed onto new hands

My ticket went to people who lived a thousand miles away

I look at the British birth certificate

The embossed seal
The cursive handwriting
I feel the thickness of the paper
All style, no substance
What does this make me?

Orphan
孤兒
How can you have such a beautiful script for such a lonely
isolated state of being?

Empty Clothes

Frayed birth
Ragged childhood

Unoccupied garments

Time protrudes poking through worn away elbows

Peeking out from behind threadbare knees

Memories darned into little heels

Lost children patched and seamed

Just pictures of empty clothes

Grief

Dark

Deep

An emotional duvet
A patched work

Stitched with frayed time

Worn out thread-bare excuses

Guilt woven in and out of the feeling weft

The centre did not hold

The synapse fractured

Flaying the fabric of sensation

Allowing the deep abyss to perforate the cover

Bleeding through

Staining the quilt

Spreading

Creeping

Crawling

Over, in, under and out

Variegating the patches

Tinting the needlework

Until the original colour is lost

Sinking Pulling Enveloping

Smothering

London Airport

Ticking lights

Popping bulbs

Blinking reflections

A human silk worm

In a Chinese Happy coat cocoon

Fluttering tired eyes

Ears unaccustomed to these sounds

Lips moving

Square faces

Cat-wide eyes

Into the arms of a stranger

Who is this?

As little teary almond eyes scan the unfamiliar contours of a face

Where has the heat gone?

Why is everything so grey?

Everyone speaks

But I cannot understand

The shape of the talk has a different rhythm

An alien tune

I am surrounded by oddness

I am alone

In The Best Interests Of The Child . . .

There are times when I feel like that lost and lonely child

It happens less and less now

There is inside me somewhere a little corner of Neverland

In The Best Interests of The Child . . .

Being prized away from the land of my ancestors

With talk of rescue and salvation dripping from Colonial lips

The lack of where-with-all,

The superficial being of far more import –

In The Best Interests of The Child . . .

Places me upon the school desk

The subject of “bring and tell”

My Adoptive Mother the bringer and teller

To thirty wide cat-eyed school children

Who and what I was

Or should that be what I wasn’t?

In The Best Interests of The Child

Clean break

Don’t refer at all to where the child has come from

In The Best Interests of The Child . . .

“She chatters away in her own little language”

The feeling back then, in the 60s

“It’s probably best to knock that one on the head”

In The Best Interests Of The Child (Cont’d)

She’s here in the UK now English is what she needs to be

That was something I was never going to be

But everyone swept that one under the carpet

It’s a new life

A new country

A small baby
Their China Doll

I was lost and I was losing

My language, my name, my heritage, my culture

A ghost child hovering between two worlds

The one that I was displaced from

The one that I grew up in

Maybe it’s a coincidence that I do what I do now?

I “play” because the child that never was never did

I chose a profession where I take on different identities

Speak other people’s words

Feel other people’s emotions

Is it because I never truly was –

It’s made me the actress and writer that I am

The child wide eyed with wonder and fear still searching

But after half a century what am I still searching for?

Belong

Belong

Pertain

Appertain

Classified

Part of

My tongue keeps me far away from belonging

On both sides of the Great Wall

Neither in

Neither out

No One’s Home

With bag I cycles

Round the streets
In and out the dusty lamp-posts
I’m going to play

At a friends house

Ding-dong
Ding-dong

Pause

Muffled sounds within

Behind the thick frosted front door glass

Through the letterbox I shout

“I’m hear to play like you said”
Silence

I walk away glance up to the window

Two jack-in-a-box heads disappear

Alone with bag

Biscuits unopened
I mount my bike
And peddle away

Swing

A seat suspend off the ground

A tyre

A plank

A branch

Kickback, lean back

Using your weight to gain momentum

Up to a point

To hang and

Than back down

Back n’ forth
Day or dusk

Time for Joy

Space for sadness

Small Talk

Small talk

Like my eyes

Like my nose

Me as a child

Small talk

Big silence

Small talk

Black space

Small talk

Deep lies

No not lies
Omissions

No not omissions

Ignorance

No not ignorance

Arrogance

Small talk

Small worries

Small minds

Fine lines

Closing blinds

The Slap

Am I adopted?

The words tumbling from my mouth

Tripping over one another like a damaged slinky

omitting steps and over-extending the spring

Time hovers

SLAP

Any body sound made under duress is uncomfortable

The adult demands to know where I got the word

‘Adopted’ from

Biting back tears as the pointillism handprint bleeds through

Stinging, burning my soft infantile skin

Mumbled words of explanation

‘Heard a dinner lady say it’

Pain slides into a silent duet

Rocking my small body back and forth

Tear tuned warbled words

‘I was only asking’

I Suppose

A child of East and West . . . I suppose

Child of neither

A teenager

Not English

Not Chinese

A young adult imprisoned behind a Chinese face

A mask that colours everyone’s thoughts

Shading assumptions

I suppose

Too English to be Chinese

Too Chinese to be English

I suppose

I was neither
Clinging to the fringes

Looking in from the outside

I suppose

A pretending person

A non-person

A non identity

A non culture

No history

No footprint

Remember Never To Forget

If I never knew in the first place

I have nothing to remember
Nothing to forget

I drink the water

Picturing where it came from
As it slides down my throat
Hydrating the inside of my body
I must never forget where my happiness springs from

I was never happy in the first place

Therefor how can I forget?

I was never told

I did not forget
I was never shown
I still remember
I was never taught
Which is why I do not understand

How can I forget what I never knew?

How can I remember what I have never known?
Why do I feel so lost?
So empty
So alone
So un-remembered
Puzzle Box

I am a Chinese puzzle
(Aren’t these puzzles actually Japanese in origin?)

I was born in Hong Kong

The fragrant harbor

The scent lingers deep in my bones

A fact that is reflected in my face,

If nowhere else in my life

At least to those who see me only from the outside

I am a complex puzzle

Someone who is perplexing

Someone who is difficult

I am a secret person

Only to be opened and understood by using an obscure

manipulative action

Perhaps all it takes is a gentle squeeze?

(In the correct place of course).

I am played like a game over and over

At times, with more subtle movements

I pose a complicated problem

I am laced with interlocking intricacies

Which many assume must be manipulated in order to be controlled

I am a puzzle, initially not of my own making,

But as my life’s skein is wound upon itself

I am lost in the maize enclosure of my own existence

Trapped inside my own puzzle box
Floating Lights

Dark, deep and silent flows the stream

Black as pitch
Billowing silk pushing hands with the breeze
Underworld souls lapping at toes
The past has come to enjoy what the living has left for the dead
Hidden in the corners of modernity
From behind internet walls
Beyond the shinny smart phone screens

People still practice the old traditions

Pausing for a moment
Old hands, young hands
Lighting candles that sail
Thousands of wavering longing flames
Floating over the edge of sight

Flickering beyond
They flutter to a diminishing end
Road Trip

Suite cases

Jenga stacked

Rucksack stuffed

Sunglasses on

Let’s go

Let’s glow

Sliding

Weaving

Waving

Floating

Phasing in and out through and beyond

The road does go on and on

Sinking

Sweeping

Sailing

Listing towards that evening haze

Soft focused nature

Sinks to dark deep navel night

Journeying forward

Longer into distance

Leaving
Forsaking Forgoing Forgone

FOUND-LING (Foundling) N. A Deserted or abandoned child

That’s what she sees when she looks into the mirror – the unknown

A lone child even though she herself is a mature adult

She cannot trace the contour of her face and feel the memory of her

Grandmother

Or the likeness of her Father

Or the similarities to her Mother

For the foundling it is a futile and hurtful exercise

An infant that has been abandoned by its parents

Discovered and cared for by others

Waif, stray, orphan, outcast

Is passed on as one might pass on a second hand possession

Used and discarded goods even at the tender age of three days

Abandoned

To withdraw one's support or help from

Especially in spite of duty allegiance or responsibility

To desert, to surrender one’s claim to

One’s right to, or interest in

To give up entirely

Is that what happens to the child?

Is that what the mother has to do?

Is that what neatly folds the extra cloths she placed in the bundle

That washed the small blue and white baby’s shirt

FOUND-LING (Foundling) N. A Deserted or abandoned child (Con’t)

That pressed the green tights

That buttoned the shirt with care

That snuggled in the folds of the blanket

That wrapped and hugged child tight

Is that what stays with the child as she is placed on the cold public steps?

International Social Services (I.S.S.) File

A brown nondescript Government Issue manila file

Sandwiched in between the covers is my short Hong Kong life

A what might have been glimpse. . .

Could have been

Should have been

But wasn’t

It isn’t the thin flat file I expected

The memory of an adoptive parental voice

Crashes through my skull

“You were abandoned. That’s all there is to say.

Your mother did not want you…”

A crueler thing to bark at a six year old

It was said

It was meant

It was spoken

The distance of fifty plus years from the six to now with welling tears

Flipping through a file with paper so thin

Like dried translucent skin

I’m reading things about me

I tried to speak Cantonese

I bowed when handed a bowl

I clapped whenever I smelt boiling rice

International Social Services (I.S.S.) File (Con’t)

How long did it take for these memories

These customs to melt into ghosts?

What length of time lapsed

Until I had no memory of anything

Before the loss was total?

Time

Gather together

Pick a time

EST, PST, GMT

A Flash mob of souls

Releasing a thousand kongming lanterns

A thousand lights

A thousand thoughts

A thousand breaths

A thousand stuttering memories

A thousand wrongs

A thousand regrets

All pinned to one singular moment in time

Tai Ch’i

Preparation

I grasp the sparrow’s tail

I press forward

I push back

A single whip leads to

Playing the lute

My shoulder retreats

The White Crane spreads its wings

Brushing my knee

I twist and step forwards

Deflecting downwards

I parry I punch

I close and push crossing my hands

Lifting the Tiger

I return to the mountain

Stepping back to repulse the Monkey

Flying at a slant the needle falls into the depth of the sea

A fan hits my back

I turn parry and punch

Waving my hands in the clouds

Stepping forwards punching with fists

Hitting the Tiger

Striking my opponents ears with both fists

Tai Ch’i (Con’t)

So I can part the wild horse’s mane

A fair lady works at the shuttles

Whilst a snake creeps down

Outside the Golden Cockerel stands on one leg

I step forward into the seven stars

I step back to ride a Tiger

Turning my body I sweep the lotus with my leg

Bending the bow the Tiger is shot

I am finished

Returning Home in Silken Robes

I will go home in Silken Robes

Falling leaves return to their roots

We are all sons and daughters of The Yellow Emperor

I will set my foot upon the soil of heaven

I am called The Foreign Devil Woman

I am Yellow on the outside

White on the inside

I do not have the tongue of my mother

I do not speak the with the voice of my forefathers

Their thoughts and customs were not immediate to me

Yet certain rites and ways of seeing are as water to the Golden Carp

One day I will return home in Silken Robes

The leaves fall from the tree to its roots

All will be under heaven

Even in East London

My Hand on Yours

My head on yours - though we cannot touch

My face mirrors yours -though you will never see it

My steps in yours - though I cannot fill them

My hand on yours - even though you will never feel it

My heartbeats for yours

Though you will never feel it

My life instead of yours

A daughter you will never see

Never know

Never feel

Homesick

I have a sickness

A sickness for my home

To which I can never return

A home

I have never had

I yearn

I grieve

For lost places

Dead memories

To touch
Something that is familiar to me

To share a moment

A breath

A look

A smile

To feel

The same heart beat

To walk in the same footsteps

To look into the same eyes

To see

Home

Quiet Thoughts

Quiet thoughts mend the body

So the saying goes

My thoughts sing, they shout

Sometimes they scream

Sometimes they are silent

But they are never quiet

Being silent for a lifetime doesn’t mean being quiet

It is existing

Just without the noise

Without the polluted sound

Chinese Water Thoughts

I am told that dripping water can eat through stone

Though as a child I was not too clear on the specifics of why or how

I read that fish cannot survive in completely clear water

And I wonder about all the fresh water fish

If I am seeing the heavens in the water (it’s called a reflection)

Then why can’t I see the fish in the trees?

I’m drinking the water

I’m trying, but for the life of me I don’t seem to be able to remember the spring

Flowing water never gets dirty

The remedy for dirt is soap and water

The remedy for dying is living

Water and words are easy to pour but impossible to recover

The remedy for dying is living

What is it about “Chinese” water?

覆水難收

覆 (fu) – spill 水 (shui) – water

難 (nan) – hard
收 (shou) – collect, receive

Lotus Blossoms

Am I one of the eight treasured things?

Growing up I never felt like a treasured thing

Unseen

Unheard

Side barred

Ignored

I was stuck in the social mire

Growing out of the filth

荷花, hé huā

The “hé” in a female’s name is the wish that she be pure and respected

I’m still wishing

Chinese Crossing Back Over The Bridge

I’d like to cross back over

Stepping on the spine of the arching bridge

But I can’t . . .

I lost the personal attributes

The key

The password

The cultural combination

So here I am stuck on one side

Looking across to the other bank

Where all my history my culture and my roots are

I can’t swim across the water is too deep

The river too wide

There is no breeze upon which to glide

I’m stuck

A prisoner
An exile from both sides

I’d love to place my feet upon the arching spine

But the bridge is closed to the likes of me

Instead my dreams will ferry me back and forth

But my feet will never cross the bridge

I Live In a Vertical Village

I live in a vertical village

My eyes are horizontal
They see the world through double-glazing
Reading books bound by dust
I taste the dock water
I feel the whips tongue licking at my back
I see rioters, their boots
I smell their fear
I see death
Just history

I live in a vertical village

With my horizontal eyes
Watching the street below through double-glazing
Ants scuttling beneath
What do they see, up here?
Mr. Moto, Charlie Chan or Susie Wong?
Just entertainment

I live in a vertical village

Seeing with horizontal eyes
Peekers, net curtain twitchers
To them I am, “other”
Ignorance plus fear equals – ME
Sojourner, Foreigner, Immigrant
Muffled faces shout “Go home!”
This is my home

I live in a vertical village

I have horizontal shaped eyes
Watching the world through double-glazing
I am a Coolie, Vagabond, Stevedore, Trench digger,
Indentured laborer, miner, guano worker,
Greeting death with horizontal eyes

I live in a vertical village

With my horizontal eyes
Watching the world through double-glazing
Marveling at my daughter
Who watches me with her baby eyes

She has inherited her Mother’s traits

Two dark brown horizontal shaped eyes
Waiting, watching the changing world
We live in a vertical village
Happy New Year!

When we say Kung Hei Fat Choi

We offer you five blessings

LUCK

FOOD

LONG LIFE

HEALTH

And

PEACE

Happy New Year - Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Plagal Cadence

An imperfect cadence

Common

Less emphatic

Less final

Almost out of context

Subdominant to the tonic triad of

Birth-Mother Adopted Father and Mother

I am a mere extension

I am not an authentic cadence

Most of my characteristics are formulaic

So I was told

In the West it’s the final

AMEN

The hymn’s end

What about her end?

Green Tea and Yorkshire Pudding

I drink green tea

I eat Yorkshire pudding
Is this wrong?
Some say yes
Some say no
But whomever says what
They talk past me, through me, up and under me

I drink dandelion and burdock

I eat dim sum
What’s wrong with that?
Some say everything
Some say nothing
But whomever says what
They talk around me, over me and see right through me

I drink lychee juice

I eat toad-in-the-hole
Why shouldn’t I?
Some say I shouldn’t
Some say it doesn’t matter
But whomever says what
They talk about me, at me and to me,
But they never talk with me

Sometimes I use chopsticks

Sometimes when I drink I cradle the cup between two hands
Balancing the crockery in the space between both sets of fingers
I was never taught to do this
Sometimes I just do

But I will always love

Green tea and Yorkshire pudding
China is not a good place to be a bird

Night sweeps across the back of my hand

Car headlights target a rag-tag cluster

Hustling Li* hawking live suppers

Slaty-breasted Rails dangling limply upside down

Resigned to their cooking pot fate

Black crow-billed Drongos

Rawboned Egrets lidless-eyed spinsters primped for a better place than this

Old, young and indifferent

Clutch onto bunches of legs attached to wild birds

Waving the carcasses in a roaring greeting to passersby

A stranger wanders over to inspect the catch

But buys nothing

An ancient vendor with spits and unleashes the words

“Bùyào zhǐshì kàn! Gòumǎi!”

“Don’t just look! Buy!”

A whistling violet thrush

Raises its beautiful eyebrow

The striking white eye-shadowed Hwamei

And a black-winged Cuckoo-shrike lurks under thick cover

Breaking radio silence with a warbled triphthong

Jasmine crested cockatoos former inmates of Flagstaff House

Fly in feral groups through Hong Kong air space

China is not a good place to be a bird (Con’t)

Freed as the Japanese army approached theses shores in 1941

What kind of Chinese bird – Niǎo – am I?

Released in 1962 to fly in alien skies

Carrying my own murmuration of starlings

I long to be free screeching across the air

Like the feral cockatoos of Hong Kong.

*The early Chinese conquerors referred to the Li as barbarians.

Modern Chinese still look down on the Li but hold them in high regard for their hunting prowess.
This work was inspired by: The Loneliness of the Chinese birdwatcher by Zhoushan 2008

First published in the US anthology Poeming Pigeons by The PoetryBox.com May 2015
This is a further redraft and differs to the original work published

Silkie: Wu gu ji — black-boned Chicken

Have you ever seen a black chicken?

Not black feathered

But black - with pitch-black bones and bluish-black Qink ink skin

A scrawny plucked carcass with sold lolling head

Feet still attached

Swinging with five toes

What’s so special about this noir poultry?

A beautiful silk like skin

Their mild manners

They make excellent pets – so I’ve been told

What’s the difference in flavor to their pale counter-parts?

I will let my mouth explore next time I order

Or perhaps I should stop being lazy and just cook

An aromatic soup simmered with steaming ginger

Ginseng, dried wolfberries and jujubes

Do I serve the soup clear?

In my mixed heritage mind

Soup isn’t really a soup without bits in it

So I drop in some pieces of meat and

Voilà!

Banana

Yellow on the outside

White on the inside

Like the bone from which my flesh hangs

A universal skeleton

All that will be left when my biodegradable packaging fails

Yellow skin on the outside

Which left in the sun creeps to brown

Dying to black

What does it mean to be

Yellow on the outside?

Aureolin, chartreuse, Jasmine, Lemon chiffon

Saffron, Mikado yellow, Naples yellow, School bus yellow

Selective yellow

Is that like selective deafness?

White on the inside

White smoke, snow

Ghost white

Isolation

Ridicule

Abuse

Unhappiness

Or just a fruit that I can eat

Chinese Numbers

Dover 58

An airtight coffin

They wanted a better life

Too much to hope for?

Morcambe bay 21

The devils beach

Pitch black

Desperate

Waiting in vain

Until the tide delivered death

Pingfan 3,000 to 12,000

Human experiments they were called

Unit 731, 1644 and 100

10,000 or more plague infested bags of flesh

Ravaged by untreated venereal diseases

Prostitutes for war 20,000

Probably more we may never know

Young females barely past their teens enslaved for sex

Cholera, Anthrax, Tularemia

Ate through the living corpses of 400,000

Unleashed from a lab man indeed had become death

Baby Hatch

A silent walk

A family hand in hand

Clutching a child

Linked only until the end of the road

A one way door

Child goes in

Sadness and guilt

The only things to leave

The parents’ fingers clinging

To the emptiness that their child has filled

Others judge

Others condemn

They have not had to walk

This path of grief, this path of utter despair

Others have not had to choose

Could you?

Baby Hatch

A silent walk

A family hand in hand

Clutching a child

Linked only until the end of the road

A one way door

Child goes in

Sadness and guilt

The only things to leave

The parents’ fingers clinging

To the emptiness that their child has filled

Others judge
Others condemn

They have not had to walk

This path of grief, this path of utter despair

Others have not had to choose

Could you?

Milestones

Seeing my Hong Kong passport

for the first time

Being sworn at in public

for the first time

Being called a Yellow Jap on the tube

for the first time

Comparing my face to that of my adoptive Mother

seeing and understanding for the first time my difference

Being spat at
for the first time

Being punched, kicked and slapped in public

for the first time

Getting cast in my first pro acting role

Not getting cast

Not being seen

Not being heard

Not being counted

Getting married
for the one and only time

Giving birth to my daughter

seeing my reflection in another person’s eye

Holding something that was so closely connected to me

finally being part of family
for the first time

Speaking out
for the first time

Being ME FOR THE FIRST TIME

The Asian in Caucasian

People expect me to be the human equivalent of a pot noodle

Manufactured for Western taste buds
East Asian for dummies

In the UK I cannot call myself Asian

Though I was born on that vast continent
A landmass that rolls for a staggering
Four-four-five-seven-nine-zero-zero-zero square kilometers
Home to four point four billion people and rising

I was made in Hong Kong

Literally
I’ve often thought I should tattoo that on my thigh
A stamp of authentication
MADE IN HONG KONG

HASHI is Japanese
Hanbok is Korean
Kimono and Katana are Japanese
Hwando is Korean
Jian is Chinese

Dim sum is Chinese

Gyoza are Japanese
Bánh bột lọc, Vietnamese
We all know Kimchi is Korean

Ping Pong is a chain of restaurants

Which started in Great Marlborough Street
It’s also a popular bat and ball game on the continent of Asia
Which I had no aptitude for, much to the annoyance and counter-expectations of the
gym mistress at secondary school

Muji
Uniqlo
Udon
Ho Fun
Bihon
Pho pronounced fueh
Just some of the Asian in Caucasian

Riding on the London Underground

Nose to stranger’s armpits

Sat next to unknown bodies with dubious personal hygiene
Pinned to the ‘stand clear of the doors please’
Poked, prodded, stamped on, elbowed and contorted
between briefcases, rucksacks, files and furs
Eyes fixed and dilated boring into the ads opposite
Or downcast because you’ve forgotten the iPod, iPhone or iPad
No one engages
Cattle crushed and commuter weary
The carriage shudders to a premature halt in the darkness
A mechanical worm stuck in the gloom of subterranean London
A hundred or so weary passengers heave a communal sigh
The driver’s voice is piped across the airwaves of the over populated carriage
“Apologies Ladies and Gents, we’re being held at a red light to regulate the service.
We’ll be on our way in a few short minutes.”
Immediately I grasp onto the mechanical speaker’s syntax
Short minutes as opposed to long minutes
My eyes wonder over the resigned travellers
Hunched and bunched
I wonder how long everyone has been doing this?
Why we put up with it
But then, everyone has to get to work, don’t they.
Chinese Whispers, Chinese Burns

If I lower my voice does this mean

I’m speaking in a “Chinese” whisper?

If I burn my own skin

Is that a real Chinese Burn?

If you’re East Asian and work in the bomb disposal

Does that mean you only have a Chinaman’s chance in hell or surviving?

Killing a Chinaman was said to result in bad luck

Leading to the phrase “Must have killed a Chinaman.”

Ellis Achong the ‘30s West Indies cricketer

The inspiration for the phrase Slow Left Arm Chinaman

Yellow the colour metaphor for the dangers that East Asians
pose to the rest of the world

Qǐng! Qǐng! In translation Chin! Chin!

Please, please, come this way, be seated, have a drink, eat…

How threatening is that?

I wish that I could be as easily seen in translation as the words on this page.
Why Do Old Chinese People Hoard So Badly?

Who are we to judge?

It's the memories
Those things
You never know might come in handy
So many reasons
It could be a jar of fermented baby mouse wine
Empty jars, a precious commodity
Washed out with care
Ready to receive Chinese herbs
For Soup
Deer tails
Dried sea horse broth
Empty chocolate tins
Empty tubs
Just how many types of medicated ointment can one person have?
Poverty makes you eek out everything
Things were not as plentiful as they are now
Prosperity doesn't last forever
It takes just one recession and we're all hoarding money
Resenting immigrants, people, benefits
Why do old Chinese people hoard so badly?
Frist published by Mardibooks in the anthology The Dance Is New 2013
Granny and Great Uncle Percy

“Have you been feeding that child – meat again!”

I sit in a back room away from the bluster
Surrounded by safety in earthenware pots,
Kilner jars, farmhouse loaf tins and coffee cream mixing bowls
I munch on, “card warmed up,”
Leftovers from a homemade Sunday
Roast beef, horseradish and asparagus wrapped in a Yorkshire pudding,
Heaven in my tiny hands.
“How many times have I got to tell you we’re vegetarians!
Stop feeding that child meat!”
Anguished silence pricks through the walls into the back room
Where I sit frozen
“As thee wish.”
Angry tap-dancing two-inch heels diminuendo down the lane,
I emerge smiling, licking my fingers,
Savoring the memory of every forbidden morsel
Grandmother smiles back,
A rebellious mischievousness lifts the corner of her mouth
Her eyes have seen so much history,
Of all in the family that adopted me it
Granny and great Uncle Percy took to me the best
Great uncle Percy ran away at the age of fourteen to
He signed to The Great War
A bugle boy,
Gassed on the Somme
One of the few survivors
The gas fixed his voice to a permanent pre-adult treble
Granny did her bit too,
Pouring sulphur into the belly of newly made bomb casings
Dangerous work
We giggle, we speak very little
We enjoy the silence of each other’s company
Granny teaches me things
Knit one, purl one,
How to make toffee,
Pass two to the back
Butter snaps,
Slip two stiches together,
Jam roly-poly, bakewell tart, Dundee cake
Pass the slip stich over the knit stitch,
Mince, pies, meat pies, Yorkshire puddings the size of dinner plates
Jack-in-the-pulpit
Short crust and puff pastry
Great Uncle Percy died first he was eighty something
I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral
Granny and Great Uncle Percy (Cont’d)

Distant relatives apparently wouldn’t understand why a child like me was there
Granny died not long after
I wasn’t allowed to go to that funeral either
I throw the one and only temper-tantrum
I was looked in the downstairs cupboard
Sitting in the dark
Until my bleary eyes got accustomed to the dark
I hear the front door open
Feet shuffling around
Low murmuring voices
The cupboard door opens
I look up to see a stranger staring at me
I stand up hold out my hand and take her coat
Her smile is kind if somewhat confused
I hang up her coat
The stranger closes the door
Careers Talk

“Well have you thought about what you want to do when you leave?” school?
I nod to signify yes
But actually I have no idea
I don’t know
“Mrs. Clarke tells me you should sit the exam for Oxford.”
The deputy head peers at me over the rim of her conservative glasses
That help to frame her conservative view of the world
“I can’t see it myself, I mean someone like you at Oxford?”
What can’t she see
What does she mean, ‘someone like me,’?
“Well you have the grades, but that isn’t the be and end all, is it?”
No I suppose it isn’t I think internal
I smile thinly and sigh softly
“Are we keeping you from some important engagement?”
I shake my head
“I should think not,”
I’m interested in literature and history I’m not very scientific or mathematical
The deputy head sniffs
It’s a long sniff to equal the length of her Roman nose
Unlike my nose which is squashed and flat
“Oh, well yes, I see why Mrs. Clarke might have concluded Oxbridge,”
It’s said begrudgingly there is no warmth
No praise or an acknowledgement of my academic achievement
“Well A History, B Geography, B RI, C Maths, B Music, B Art, A English Language,
A English literature . . .”
The eyes surface and pierce over the top of her glasses
Desperate to understand the reason for my success
How could I have accomplished such grades?
How could I – this “other” have gained a grade A in English language and literature!
Her eyes narrow as if aping mine
I lower my eyes I don’t want this interview to carry on
I don’t like this feeling inside of me
“Well Miss – we’d better see what we can do for you. I’ll confer further with Mrs.
Clarke. Personally Oxford is not the place for you, maybe Cambridge – I don’t think
so, perhaps a university or some sort or maybe a polytechnic…”
“Thank you, Miss may I go?”
“You are excused, send the next girl straight in.”
With that I and my “otherness” leave