Carol and me I think 1985 (and I gave them away also)

Miss Burns said I was pathetic at maths because

I didn't get it

I was quite behind in the workbook

page four or something

she called me out of class at least to deliver this news

and I didn't know what to tell her apart from

I can't do it

maybe I was seven then maybe I was eight

but later that year when

she found out I had started

a collection of woven badges

she gave me some woven badges of her own

she got them from America

seventies or early eighties I guess

I thought them old fashioned

and untidy around the edges

as if they had been removed from

something or else stored funny

she had been to Wyoming

to North Dakota to Nebraska

to Idaho and all the badges

had on them cowboys or

mountains or rodeo

who were you Carol

in those places

that you had to give

that part of you away