Unfashionable Memories

remember the clothes you wore?

Try to forget the hair,
so thick
wild and wooly
a monument to British winters

the Rod Marsh t-shirt,
brown shorts, socks and sandals,
jumpers from the neighbours
out of date but comfortable
all lovingly worn.
what was out of date then,
is a statement now -
temporally equal in poverty

your first Levi’s
hand-me-down
worn blue cords fitting proudly,
but a growing frame demands sacrifice

your shoes weren’t the coolest
even then
did you really care?
those K-Mart specials
falling apart in their comfy cheapness

bad haircuts and bad hair
you quietly struggled through
with care, but without tears
fighting off coloured taunts
and flying through drudgery
confounding well-spelt attempts
with a knack for phonetics