Day 1: Christopher

Ken's Auntie Janey Scrubs The Carpet

One who was forever toiling 
deserves to be announced in capitals:
Auntie Janey and Uncle Jim 
tried so hard to make up 
for Ken's Dad so often gallivanting 
to his other family.

We minded not a bit
as they were forever
gathering up our little
gang – Ken, Peter, me
and David when he was around
to bundle us in their van.

Transport us to Wesham Hospital
for another hour of Janey being kind –
we never saw the visited patient,
but hung about in the grounds,
waiting for our evening treat:
the beach and wooden jetties

at Lytham, deserted Open Air
Swimming Pool at St. Anne’s,
a playground for cops’n’robbers,
cowboys’n’injuns. Or when the
weather kept us indoors at Ken’s,
his mum at work, Janey would be

so often scrubbing the carpet in
the lounge while we got our knees
damp as we crawled behind settees.
For all Janey’s loving care, Ken’s love
of racing around meant a motorbike
as soon as he was old enough –

and an open stretch of road on
the borough boundary beside the airport,
a twist of his wrist for the throttle,
the throaty roar shouting “I’m here! I’m here!”
speed snatched him from our lives:
this evening he did not make it to St. Anne’s.

© C. J. Heyworth April 2012