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Three Or So

Is that child in the snapshot me?

That little girl in the woollen dress

By a broken door in a tiny yard

She's shy and laughing and ready to run

And shielding her eyes from the morning sun.

I've forgotten the dress, and the colour of it

I've forgotten who took the photograph

I've forgotten the little girl, three or so

She's someone else now, to be wondered at

With my mother's eyes and my own child's hair

And my brother's smile, but the child who's there-

The real soul of her- fled long ago

To the alley-way where she mustn't go

Through the broken door in that tiny yard.

Rough men on motorbikes, not to be looked at

Scrawny cats scratching, not to be touched

Down to the railway line, never to go there

Nor up to the road where the traffic rushed

Stay close in the yard with the sun in your eyes

Come and be still for your photograph.

I can hear now the drone of those bikes

And the loud voices of the men

And the howl of the tomcats on their prowl

I can hear the scream and shush of the train

And the whooshing of traffic on the road

But the summer buzz in that tiny yard

And the child who laughed with her best dress on

And the voice that told her to stand in the sun

And the click that pressed the shutter down

Have gone

As if they had never been.

Berlie Doherty