Women (1)

I thought I would write triolets for the women in my life - one triolet per year. Here are the first ones. The second triolet refers to my first flash of memory, either at six months or eighteen months. I had whooping cough, and the cough 'woke' me. I was being held, presumably by my mother, and saw what must have been my favourite aunt, Cecie, gazing anxiously at me. With a blur of window light to my right, our kitchen window.

The fifth owes more to Freud than my memory. Do I remember or only imagine I remember my mummy with a smile warning me not to touch my 'dingledum'?
Sixth: towards the end of a kidney infection, I 'urged' up milk like this, into her lap. Since too much calcium is bad for the kidneys (I developed kidney stones in adulthood) my body was being wise for me.
Seventh. First day at infants school. The rainy, sniffling hall. There was a pretty girl with short straight blond hair; I felt an attraction. My first (apart from mum). Don't remember seeing her after that. I was often away sick.


women


Leaving the safety of the cave,
I took the Silk Road, the vagina;
Nobody told me I was brave,
Leaving the safety of the cave;
The thrilling passage made me crave
Repeated journeys like a miner--
Even if I never found the cave
I’d take the Silk Road, the vagina.

Two women, bound up with the ‘I’
I found when coughing almost killed me.
A vague light, later known as sky;
Two women, bound up with my ‘I’,
That’s now my earliest memory.
One longed to hold me and one held me.
Two women, bound up with the ‘I’
I found when coughing almost killed me.

I never saw my mother’s breasts;
I had to choose a different songline.
She never suckled me to rest;
I never saw my mother’s breasts
More bare than through a frock, a vest,
A slip or brassiere, ample, longline.
I never saw my mother’s breasts,
I had to choose a different songline.

There was a between her thighs
As she crouched, dress up, on the toilet;
I gazed at it with goggle eyes,
That puzzling between her thighs;
And still I feel confusion rise,
Wanting to worship and despoil it.
There was a between her thighs
As she crouched, dress up, on the toilet.

And did I stroke my dingledum?
And did she wave her scissors, smiling?
For otherwise… I wasn’t dumb,
Yet couldn’t stroke my dingledum
All through my teenage years, nor come.
The dubious memory is beguiling.
Yet did I stroke my dingledum,
And did she wave her scissors, smiling?

I gagged on milk and urged it up,
Spatters of white on mummy’s clothing;
She’d held against my lips a cup
When I lay sick; I urged it up,
Gagging, into her tender lap,
And ever since have felt a loathing;
I gagged on milk and urged it up,
Spatters of white on mummy’s clothing.

She left me; she let go my hand!
Infant school smells, and rainsoaked faces.
One girl I fell for, sweet and blonde;
But mum had left, let go my hand;
Still crying, I was made to stand
In shame –I could not tie my laces.
She’d left me, she’d let go my hand!
Infant school smells, and rainsoaked faces.