page 138

My Accomplishments

My skates bite the thick ice
as my clever white boots
carve an 8, then 8 backwards

and backwards again, scoring
lines on the frozen dam.
John Hore's country songs

play tinnily from speakers
on poles. John's from round here
and that's thrilling

like flying round and round
the dam until I'm bored
and grab another kid and go

to where the surface creaks
and even further out, before racing
to the safety of the bank.

Then in Mr Coulter's small
upstairs rooms, I'm on fire,
strumming my ukulele,

belting out Mockin' Bird Hill—
just like The Singing Rage, Miss Patti Page.
Next it's the Limbo Rock. Mr C holds

the stick and other kids watch me
bend over backwards, lower and lower—
I'm under! But soon

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my friend Pam and I prepare
for the fancy dress competition
in our holiday-town hall.

In red lipstick, shiny dresses
and big hats decorated
with purple crepe paper

we teeter along in the line
of cowboys, pirates and rabbits
and I think it only right

when the MC says 'First prize
goes to the two ladies!' We've won
a ride in Gerald George's aeroplane.

In the air the plane skews the town
with its pointed larch trees, roads
rush away and I'm pressed hard

against the tiny window because
I can't find my wooden house
on its pebbly section, or any sign

of my mother, father and brother,
down where they should be,
waving.