My childhood is coloured cobalt, aquamarine,
gamboge and vermilion framed in gold leaf.
There are no family fights, rain that sheets down for days,
shrill voices, chilblained feet, or school bullies although

I can find these things if I scratch in dark corners.
Instead ball lightning bounces over treetops, a seal
gleams on a sandbank, Christmas peas ping into pots and
I smell Mum’s ginger sponge fresh from the shacklock oven.

Return to childhood scenes highlights black veins
in lucid serpentine, roughens mellow landscapes,
drowns out our songs of change and growth,
and opens old scars to fingers still prone to poke and jab.

Karen Peterson Butterworth