Going through some old poetry, found this. Can’t remember if I’ve posted it before…
As a child I collected swatches of colour
Citrine and smoke, jasper and brick,
Built secret lives in patterns, rehearsed
Intimate disclosures, carefully structured
Interactions. Now the untold moments
Of that life are shimmered slicks of memory.
I imagine myself in my room, sorting
Squares of cobalt, cinnabar, alizarin, emerald.
Precious knowledges and hidden mastery,
Never confessed. Did I sneak these past
Checkpoints, hoard collections of space,
Gather these threads to me like life?
Was it an indulgence, wondered at, our
Strange daughter, with the books and the
Charts, laying out strategies and making
Games from hues of chance?