First Memory? - Stephen A. Roberts

day upon day of endless youth it feels
I spent swimming in the douit with eels
or outside the house-front in scorching sun
in a hot yellow sand-pile of desert fun

down Houmet beach reached through the fern
my freckle-tender skin was quick to burn
under high azure skies and lazy Dakota drone
I moved plastic soldiers amongst the stones

So: my first memory - was I five?
what happened to the other four years I'd been alive?

was my first memory a warm and sticky feeling -
then my Mother scolding, Mother kneeling?

or was it Dad's mint-green Ford Anglia van -
and evening shouts from the mackerel man?

my first memory might be one of these
or lost,
among the poplar trees
pollarded,
on the way to school

Stephen A. Roberts