The Story of ‘I’
My ‘I’ landed with a thump. One day
a mother was chasing the tails of two small sons,
the next I was there, orange as an apricot.
Distracted, she bundled me into blankets
and tired cardigans, carried me home on her lap
in the front seat of the Morris Minor. By day
my brothers scurried to the school where they had
their ears tweaked and their bottoms caned, while
I stayed home with a mother who liked to watch
the rain without being interrupted.
I learned to be quiet, to hide under the bedclothes,
until I was able to stand, walk, then run down
Chesterfield Road to the railway embankment
that bristled with a great beard of nettles
that stung my legs. When I tried to keep up
with my brothers, they knocked me over
and tumbled me all the way down the slope.
I got up again, again.
Caroline Gilfillan has published five poetry collections, the most recent of which is Hail Sisters of the Revolution (Cowslip Press, 2022), with photographs by Andrew Scott, drawing on her time in the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970’s.