Gwydion Elliott – ‘On the memory stairs’

I once sat on the kind yellow carpet of the stairs
and the old bannister beside my head spoke to me about memory.
It told stories of the creaking floors
and the blue paint’s icy touch on thick stone walls,
of the overgrown garden where I played
in a tiger costume amongst delicate drifting insects.
Of the time I sat on the kind yellow carpet of the stairs
and the old bannister beside my head spoke to me about memory.
Of how I’d melt into faded blurs in forgotten old photographs,
then and forever, always. Of how quickly they’d dissolve before my older eyes,
as now they do, how I’d wonder what I could say
of the silences and the words between them,
and what I could say of the dreams of tigers.