As the light dwindles again

and I am returned to that winter

my baby face a horror show

of scar and NHS stitches

I spy a large spider on a Lino floor

my mother christens the arachnid 

pida pw

syllables I can almost parrot 

the invented dialogue of infancy

delightful dictionary-free words 

that bubble and exist only 

in a certain time place and feeling 

the music of the mother tongue 

my boy imagination 

in Yuri Gagarin’s shed

cosmonaut caught 

in dawning thought confusion 

my reverie when sleep

was blessed and not timetabled

foetus as astronaut 

tethered in the helmeted womb

every amazing event

each star show has its mundane side

something so down to earth

we can’t escape 

no matter how high we climb