Remember

Can I remember     the tuckshop roller-shutters,
                               orange and lime Tarax bottles,
                               the packaging of potato straws
                               branded in primaries?

Icy-poles etcetera in the dim shelter-shed?
I'd walk along the wooden spine
rising between long slatted benches,
one facing the dark back wall,
the other the vista of asphalt playground
bisected by a column.
Like a tightrope-walker I balanced
from end to end. (No one clapped.)

Can I remember    blue and white plaid
                              small squares, was there
                              a yellow thread?
                              White collar, buttons
                              down the front, an A-line,
                              socks and lace-ups?
                              (Mostly scuffed.)

The long-gone satchel's buckles and leather
leave barely a trace in my recall.

The Lakeland dozen lacked
a bright gold-green and a pink pencil.
Later I found then disposed of a set,
tin and all, with that landscape printed on metal
the twelve dryish sticks would never achieve.

I preferred oil pastels.  I learned to draw
copying grecian profiles from my book of Greek myth.
That book I've kept through the dust-jacket went
the way of all paper.

Glorious Aphrodite bribes the Apple of Discord from
the kneeling boy, wonder-struck Paris.
Athena pouts.
Achilles in a long dress clutches a darling sword.
Cassandra clamours in the doomed temple.
Circe scowls.
The bird-women wave.
Patient Penelope weaves her perpetual skein.