April poetry 2016/15

Enough for Sweets and a Comic

A message scrawled on the back of an envelope

in lieu of paper – my mother was frugal,

even her diary was built of butcher's foolscap

and cast-off scraps of newspaper –

here is the tooth that came out today

illustrated by a crude, five-year old's depiction

of a face with a missing tooth,

a ring with an arrow pointing to the gap.

I'd hoped for a sixpence, pre 1920 for preference

or at least pre-1946. A shilling was too much

to expect, even then I knew my parents were poor

but thruppenny bit seemed too mean,

although I knew my dad had a tin of them.

The tooth, and the note, under a flat pillow;

the cotton one with lines of rainbow hues

with the feely corner darned in black.

And sleep, among the fox-dark sounds

of wind among the treetops and wood pigeons

heralding the morning light when I woke

and there was no coin beneath my pillow,

just my old tooth and the ragged scraps of trust.