To Tenby

To Tenby

that moment at the end of bleary chivvying
summer special on my lap sweets already half eaten
in that moment when with a thunk
unclunked or clicked we were sealed into our holiday

brown vinyl burning legs below my snake belted shorts
father’s cigarettes virginian sweet ashen flicked midges
caught on the wind sucked back through the window
sugaring minnie the minx or ginger and numbskulls

all the while mother asking ‘are you feeling sick’
brown paper bag ready in the footwell
with the tupperworn buttered ham sandwiches

into an A-road world of trees and hedgerows
square council housing jig-saw cottages new build bungalow
portico piles down long yellow driveways
and tractors and caravans bicyclists and muttered
white knuckling grip cursing lost time

through country towns with one set of lights
church clocks and women wandered markets
wearing chemically printed polyester

i spy sky road car ‘can I see it’
and groans for the unguessed three cows drinking
five miles behind

as we ingested the size of the journey
and digested olympic breakfast pancakes fizzy orange
tartrazine brightness free lollipop
the afternoon sibling squabbling
the threats to sit still and put your feet down
then songs would begin

how young my mother was
as she slipped a fox’s glacier
into my fathers mouth

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