Childhood

The glass; half empty or half full?
Looking through a magnifier it seems like the dust stands out
but in hindsight it's actually great.
Even in photographs I falsely overcompensated.
The chip told me it would be better when I was older.

Now I'm looking over that shoulder
and I can see that we had it alright.
Better than that.
I've been a little bit of a twat to
say divorce defined me.
Their love underlined us both.

Dad sang us to sleep with tales of rattlesnakes and bugs;
he helped me ride a bike, drive a car,
just recently filled me with air.
He made things appear from behind my ear,
held my nose in his thumb like a magician.
Taught us made-up words and we'd listen intently.
French numbers and swimming.
He taught me about winning.
Lost his religion on the karaoke;
Mr Nereda, my dad, the bee's knees.
Our dog died.
That was the first time I heard him cry.
He made me sausage sarnies, then re-started his life;
met an angel and cleverly made her his wife.
He's worked every day of my life. 
Just now I saw a moving image,
him waving a flower in front of my face
to make me smile as a baby.

Mum was always her.
"Hello, love."
Looking at pictures isn't enough,
so I've gone back to the archives in my head.
And there are so many moments.
Cliffe Castle, Colne, casualty with Dan,
She smelled of Ysatis and Lamberts.
I remember sleeping on clouds.
We played with Magic on a rainy day.
Dan snooker-cueing porcelain dolls and
cutting hair from trolls.
She made us read, made us laugh, made us people.
Christmas with mountains of presents,
mince pies, carrots, the lot.
These are the things I forgot in my
misspent stroppiness.
And in that moving image,
she was with him, waving flowers and feathers
in front of me, in a pram, dressed in pink.
Why didn't I stop and think about a life before forever?

The cup was half empty but brimming
with invisible poison
and I surpassed naïve.
You can't pin a heart onto a sleeve made of glass.
But in a furnace, the glass melts and under pressure it shatters;
I don't suppose it really matters but now I know.

Those days in the past I lambasted:
they were a blast.