SWINGTIME 1963

Buttery sun slants through the nets
Bootees kick into light
Dad’s dependable shunter’s palms
Guide to-and-fro at my back
Terpsichore clock hours bouncing blissful
From Bill Haley’s vinyl track
On the scarlet-lidded Dansette


Toddler pendulum, Dad rocks meFrom kitchen cool to living room warmthUp, lifting, back, forward, toes pointed,Flying gaspy giggles, you trying to sing,Floor tilts with subsidenceFrom mine-shafts burrowing Blind moles under our valleyDropped pencils roll from the south Towards our cramped back yardIts draughty outhouse, crunchy coalholeSteam train rings on railsShudders the triangular under-the-stairsVibrates my heart-space with its presence
I don’t recall the Kennedy shockWhen all the world stood stillKnowing where they were,What they were doing.I was ready already For the Moon landing.How quickly it came, like the endTo my sixties swingingEarthbound then soaring through stardustOrbiting before the plummet
Two years later, back on the ground,I run my fingers over those hooksEither side the jamb painted magnoliaEchoes of where I swung without caresWhere hospital bed now fills the roomWith its pulleys and chromeWhen the dark blood clot moved into oursWhile I was sleeping And ate my daddy alive.