Girl // original

Jimmy pelep

Got it.
Ready, Dad?

Go on then.

Finger-pick the morning, slow as butter on toast,
You tap the glass,

Look, Dad, the clouds made a coast.

We pack two apples, a biscuit we’ll share,
Your wellies say squelch like they’ve got their own prayer.
You tug my sleeve,

Tell it proper, alright?

So I fold the day open like a letter in light.
Street hum, sparrows, the bus does a sigh,
Your hand in mine: pocket-warm July.
You point at a puddle,

That one’s the moon, see?

And we step through silver into might-have-been sea.
Brolly like a circus, drip-drop drum,
You hum a tiny melody that used to be Mum’s.
I ask who you were before you learned name,
You grin like a lantern and you start your refrain,

Fore I came down, I lived in a pocket,
Kept stars in a jar and dreams in a locket.
Slid down rainbeams,
wheee,
like a secret lane,
Picked you and Mum
‘cos you’d dance in the rain.

Taddle tale, tell it slow,
Tea-steam stories where the warm winds blow.
Little boots tap the road like Braille,
Reading the world by a taddle tale.
Taddle tale, say it true,
I think the sky’s been talking to you.
Hand in a pocket of April hail,
We’re learning to live by your taddle tale.

Right, listen up,
once I was a whisper in a shell,
Riding little waves going whoosh,
proper swell.

Had a map made of feathers,
a feather-map trail,
Followed a robin,
he was boss,
never fail.

He said
‘Down there’s Dad, bit wobbly but kind,
He makes toast too burnt but he never minds.’

And Mum?
She’s a lighthouse wrapped up in a shawl,
She hums when it’s foggy so you don’t get feel to small.

I checked all the windows,
knocked on the blue,

Said,
Excuse me, hello, I’m meant to be by you.

The you-that-is-more when I jump in your day,
The bit that goes louder when we go and play.’

So I scooted down a raindrop,
weee, didn’t slip,
Landed by your trainers with a plop and a drip.

You looked so knackered but you smiled anyway,

So I tucked in your pocket and I stayed.

Cheeky stowaway… best decision I’ve ever had.

You draw me a map with crumbs on a plate,

I circle the bits that are worth the wait.

We write on the mist where the window’s pale.

Home is a line in a taddle tale.

Taddle tale, tell it slow,
Tea-steam stories where the warm winds blow.
Little boots tap the road like Braille,
Reading the world by a taddle tale.
Taddle tale, say it true,
I think the sky’s been talking to you.
Hand in a pocket of April hail,
We’re learning to live by your taddle tale.

If I forget, will you carry the bit?

I’ll carry the bit and the rest of it.

If I get cross

We’ll count to four.

If I get scared

We’ll check the door.

If you get sad

I’ll read your skies.

If you look lost

I’ll borrow your eyes.

And we’ll go walking the in-between,
Where the stories choose what they mean.

I keep the notes you hand me,
crumb constellations,
Bus-ticket stars and leaf-inked nations.
You badge my coat with daisy pins,
Declare me brave, so the brave begins.
We step through town where the shop bells chime,
You rename streets ‘til they fit our time:
Marmalade Lane and Teddy-Bear Bend,
A cul-de-sigh where the hard bits mend.
If anyone asks how we found our place.

We read the weather on your face.

You tug my sleeve.

Dad, tell it again,

And I swear I see Mum in the shine of the rain.
You say you chose us, love chose first,
And watered the ground where two hearts thirst.
Your laugh is a lantern. Your hush, a sail.
I live by the light of your taddle tale.

Jimmy pelep

Cassie Mark 2