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The Day I Knew My Mother Really Loved Me

Andrew Detheridge

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I’d been collecting them for weeks.
Panini stickers. 5p a pack.
Ripped them open eagerly as soon
as I left the shop. Hoping to see the shiny foil
club badges or the few ‘Wants’ I still needed.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 I had a tactic:
don’t stick ’em in until I’d got them all.
That way, I could still swap any card
(for the right price) then get it again-
because some people swapped 3-for1.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 I kept them all in an elastic band
that bulged my pocket in a way
that would have been slightly pornographic;
if I hadn’t been eight. Then one day,
I got home, reached into that same pocket….. empty!

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 I rushed outside, down the drive,
my eyes, searchlights, illuminating every
step of pavement, each slab of gutter.
I retraced my route all the way back to the cornershop…
they were gone forever!

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 By the time I was home again
my sobs ripped out in breathless gulps.
Mom thought that the Big Boys from the rough estate
had caught up with me; I told her
it was much worse than that.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 Then the miracle happened. She nodded
and smiled, went to her purse.
Unfolded a one pound note, scrunched it
into my palm and sent me back out, out
into the breach once more, dear friends.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 It was the day I first knew for certain,
that my mother really loved me.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-day-i-knew-my-mother-really-loved-me/?share=google-plus-1