Once everything was big
and you were small,
but year after year your shadow 
crept up the wall 
and you grew tall.

My Gran was a Caribbean lady
As Caribbean as could be
She came across to visit us
In Shoreham by the sea.

A queen in a palace, slumped on a throne,
Surrounded by servants but all alone.
Heavy with handshakes, bunches of flowers,
jewels, crowns, grinning for hours.

The seagulls are doing their dance again – Wings clasped to their sides, they stare up the street.
Up and down, up and down, go their knobbly pink knees;

I am a crocodile who lost my smile in the turbulent waters of the Nile.
When I was very small, trapped inside my crocodile egg,