There was never a ladder to the loft,
we shinned up the airing cupboard
like working class monkeys,
treading on towels to reach the hatch,
you smacked the heating on the dent
until it hushed it’s steamy grumbles,
and the windows iced like Brentford nylon on the inside,
there was always that squeaky stair,
third from bottom
mum’s nark, and a wooden grass
the bain of many a teenaged drunk,
a kitchen way too small
for our big loud family to be contained
within its arms of yellow council brick,
there were dramas enough to fill a palace
except it had gnomes outside instead of soldiers,
and a phone in the hall
where everyone could see when you got dumped,
sixty years of births and deaths and fights
weddings and funerals, when neighbours closed their curtains
and the road bowed its head in respect for one of their own,
dogs, and fish, and hamsters, filled our infant lives,
once there was a parrot
a scarlet macaw on a pole which swore like a trooper
and lasted three days because it said f* in front of Nan,
banished forever to the Croydon jungle,
we put up with stuff, like people did,
perfection was never on the radar
because none of us knew what it looked like,
if it was a mythical beast, it belonged to another family
we lived loved and died there
and now it will be someone elses home
we reliquish our hold
maybe they will put in a ladder
like dad always meant to do
I lost my dad this morning