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- Contents Category: Poem
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- Article Title: She Lets Go
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Her hand in mine
she walks looking back
at all the bright colours –
that’s a funny man.
She says what she feels
and teaches me what I thought I used to know.
The warmth of her hand
the sense that she will never let go,
even though her body
is twisting back to examine
a piece of glass with writing on it.
I have jobs to do:
the ATM, bookshop, the car.
Her grip tightens
as people navigate father and daughter,
as if we were a reedy outcrop in a river
separated from traffic
and Wednesday shopping day
when I met my mother, here
under the T & G corner.
Insistent memories that I cannot trust.
Was Dad at the pub or the sale yards?
Her hand begins to tug.
This is the place I was picked in broad daylight.
Three men having fun with a country teenager.
After they had shuffled away, laughing
an older woman walking beside me
snapped You should’ve hit them back.
It’s disgraceful, a boy your size.
She walked off leaving me cut down to size
and still my daughter trusts me
to guide her along
when really I am hanging on
out of fear, out of love.
Nearby, laps are being hung.
Somebody’s doof music is another person’s flashback.
My daughter’s questions are random accidents
in a game of pretend
where I am Amy, Morgan, or Lulu
being pulled toward a teddy display in a chemist window
where she lets go, she lets go.
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