Only Fragile Glass (Revised) Poem by Margaret Alice Second

We moved away but you stayed - showed me where
our past lives played, the gutted street, our old church
adjoined to another faith, rutted avenue with tar almost
gone, dirt road to where we lived, everything different,
forlorn memories now ending in a garden

The rest is part of the cement works - everything we
knew forgotten; the struggle to make it & get to today
irrelevant, hours of study for better marks to continue
studying (a self-enclosed circle) lost, the willow tree
& lush green grass, two desks for my twin and me -

Reading in knee-high grass or when unable to stand
dad’s voice under weak light on the porch - mother
welcoming the principal and wife into our little house,
embarrassment as dad with hat balanced on one leg
hands on hips, mother unperturbed - nothing could

Shake her delusions of grandeur - a wonderful way to
get ahead while living amongst hostile family & noise
of dad’s voice, but he had a heart of gold which made
mother seem diamond-cold - though in my later years
I came to suspect her shine was only fragile glass…