Signal / a transatlantic response

One of my addictions is to childhoods. Those that come out sounding like: ‘I spent mine in Fife’ or ‘mine smelled like gasoline and orange peel.’ I collect them like my sister gathered wine corks in a suitcase. When they asked her what for, she said:

bara ha dem.

‘You could make a floating cushion,’ they said.

‘You could make a curtain across your bedroom door.’

‘You could get into the Guinness book of records.’

Bara ha dem, was all she ever answered.

My sister and I said ‘I grew up in’ and no one’s attention stretched that far. There’s not enough nerve to reach such disparate docks. My childhood was spent in splits, developed a posy of peeled endings. But to what extent is my childhood a part of this ending?

I’m addicted to the exercise of crafting a place out of this —

conjure a stillness out of my loved ones.

Because my childhood was spent with them, all I want is
just to have them.