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LIFE IN A SUITCASE

Crawling in the loft today, I found the suitcase.
Through a cobweb curtain, beneath a patina of dust
It lay.
Just where it’s lain for twenty years, full of memories of early days.
The suitcase.
The rusting lock resisted but eventually succumbed.
I tentatively raised the led..

And there, on top, the baby book, pages edged in blue, 
Lovingly recording every detail as I grew.
Birth weight 6 pounds ten.
First tooth, first word (real or imagination?)
First step, first use of potty? Please Mum, too much information.
First inoculation.
First day at school. Is that a tear stain on the page?

Underneath, a folder full of dreaded school reports;
Teachers choosing from a list of typical retorts,
Cliché after cliché.
Progress satisfactory, written work untidy; English good.
In geography he’s lost his way; must try harder, 

And now a sheaf of cuttings, yellowing as cuttings do.
A public record of my passage through
Those early days.
My parents proudly announce my birth in nineteen- thirty-eight.
My coming of age in ‘fifty-nine..
The engagement, the wedding, the first-born son;
The second, the third – where did he come from?
An afterthought.

But here’s a form, in legalese beyond dispute;
The parting of the ways is absolute.
That wasn’t part of the plan.

The story in the suitcase ends just there;
There’s no more room for records telling where
Life took me next.
Somewhere up there, another suitcase houses volume two.
But that’s for another day. 
Today I have too much to do.

1st August 2020
Dusty Old Memories poetry contest
Sponsor Constance La France

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