I have been here once before – It was a long time ago, I don't remember when.
But as my father handed me the axe-head
Images exploded in my brain.

That fire, they said, was red as red as red
as red as a fox, your lips, a cherry;
that fire, they said spread and spread and spread,
faster than a cheetah or a nasty rumour;

Tippi can't stand clowns.
Dragon is terrified of cockroaches
and Mom of mice.
Dad pretends to be fearless,
though I've seen him flinch when the mail arrives

The building is white,
ivy eating its way up the broken walls,
windows small
and scratched.

She is not here.
Not beside me in bed
nor in the room
at all.

It has happened

Miss Flotsam was my reception teacher.
She had travelled the world.
Brown hair turned golden
under distant suns,
clothes carrying colours

This is my story.
It is mine alone because I am the one who needs
to tell it.
I am the one who is still here,
no longer stage right but

All you see is outside me: my painted smile,
the rosy-posy shell, the fluttery eyes.
A butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth-type me

The hidden garden we played in 
was bordered in red brick.
Crenellations of a faded fort,
ivy-scattered and wind-aged.
A Victorian garden.

I spied a small lonely boy.
I was his beautiful red balloon,
from morning through to noon,