Tags
70s, blanket box, blog, kodak instamatic, memory, NaPoWriMo, nostalgia, poem, polaroid, schreiber
we put our past together
imperfectly,
from fragments we find
in envelopes with yellowed paste,
on the tops of wardrobes
and at the backs of drawers.
overloaded drawers that only open
if yanked at a certain angle,
and taken by surprise, whose bottoms
billow out into the cupboard below.
or in a schreiber blanket box,
with its unsatupon black vinyl seat,
long-term resident of the landing,
a sanctuary for half-finished garments
sewn for small children long grown up.
washed out 110 instamatic colour snaps,
faded as if by the hot 70s summer sun
they captured in blurry matte oblongs.
or square monochrome over-exposed
polaroids, the nearest we came to magic,
as we posed awkwardly,
clutching our own elbows,
in front of the french windows.
letters from our neighbours,
witnesses who took an interest
in our welfare, postcards
from our younger selves,
cheery messages from foreign parts,
birthday cards from long-lost friends.
we reassemble our lives as they once were.
but they are jigsaws with missing pieces –
the edges of a cloud, the arrowhead tip
of a church spire, the verdant heart of a tree.
they will always be insoluble and incomplete,
vital clues absent or jumbled,
astray in the thickets of memory.
NB I am reposting poems about my Dad for napowrimo this year, partly because he died last year during lockdown one, partly because I’ve not had time to write new ones and partly because I can no longer work out how to use Classic Editor in my WordPress blog. Been disenfranchised by new tech. I can’t make this the same face as the poem because it limits what you can do. I can’t switch to html easily like before.
Incidentally found out the camera on the left is still halfway through a film …
Photo of cameras by Belinda.
poem in a white ribbed vest 