Playing around with early memories
Eating snails:
The New Baby
She plays under the caravan,
Sits in summer dress, in semi
dark.
Bare legs
Brown slime
oozes through toes
As she rubs
her feet up and down
In squelchy mud.
“One ...two
... three ... four ... five ... seven...”
She picks up
her snails,
Arranges them
on leaves,
Gathered earlier
that morning - with Dad.
Above her,
the baby cries...
She looks up –
sighs...
Unaware that
this new guest
Will mean the world to her.
Taking a shiny snail in two hands
She sees the head move...
She tastes it,
Dribbles ,
Chews and
chews
And finishes
it off.
Biting on the
shell it gives up nothing more.
She drops it
down, with the others.
She’ll not
have another.
She continues
to make a home,
Under the
caravan.
I can't remember the taste and have no wish to repeat the experience.
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