A Birthday Poem

We rode the train from Brighton to London yesterday through hills and fields covered in snow. It was beautiful. Breathtaking. And I decided to write a poem as we went, a poem about the different shapes of the day of my birth. Later on, at the party in Balham Bowls Club, I read it to the friends of mine who had gathered for the red balloon bash.

Here it is for you:

On the Day of My Birth

There was a pond kept neat for winter revelers

and we skated in seven degree weather,

four of us teens tucked away in a mountain secret.

Before that, the snow fell on Turre St.

in flakes the size of cotton balls on my birthday

as my friends took their sleeping bags

and backpacks from their parents' cars

and giggled their way into the house.

For the next three years, it snowed on the day of my birth

and we piled into Mom's peach mobile, drove

around the town looking at Christmas lights and singing carols.

Later, on the day of my birth,

my lover got on a place and moved home.

A year after, she came back to collect me

but first snuggled into the white duvet,

our room the third floor of an art deco hotel.

On the day I was born, I've been ill, my partner's been sick,

and I've worked a Sunday shift. My dad's given me an opal

necklace, to keep the fire of his love close to my heart.

My mom sends a book of poetry each year.

When I turned three, I'd celebrated in so many house,

I asked if I was now four. And once, we had a party in June

when I was five and a half and it wasn't the day of my birth at all.

Twenty-six years on, I've seen a quarter century,

made new homes and new friends, and ice skated

more time than I can remember.

A snowflake drifting on the day of my birth.