Around us and inside
the lamp burns in
my three years.
The corners grey grey
and the book is bright,
slaghts blotched light.
My others huggle me
(reading for bedtime)
while daddy rattles the
black cherry line from London.
We three smudge in, til
electric shoves out
our winter of content.

Twenty years
and we are three again.
Under grey grey sky
between funeral
and the birthday he never.
Hedgerows glow;
thin trees slaght purple.
Mum hooks us,
smudging her space.
It feels too late
too soon for us.
There will be no homecoming.