Do we still remember the things

We did not tell each other

In our shared childhood?

My nightmares of the old woman at the gate,

Which made you moan and whimper in the dark?

The never-talked-about horror and fear,

Of the rise and roar and swell

Of family quarrels?

Of the sneaky little shame we all felt

of our faded, cracked lavatory,

our funny little windows, our too-blue walls?

Or the pleasures of our

individual daydreams dreamt behind books,

While playing

With mock bows and arrows,

And over precise stitches in your narrow hermit’s room?

The three of us with our own secrets.

Even as we wore

Clothes which smelt of each other’s smells,

And shared

Thousands of sunlit meals in the kitchen.