And I sit up on the kitchen counter
To hear her soaring Rosina,
And remember Mama as she was,
Poised and powerful,
Lungs that could cut glass.
Before Tata left.
Before Coventry.
We hear nasty people every night
Cursing Christ and
All the Saints In Heaven.
Mama blesses herself,
Showers the room in holy water
And insists I say my prayers,
Which I do,
Hiding underneath the feather duvet
Hoping God will hear me
Here
In Coventry.
Before England
Mama pitched a coffee cup
At the wall.
Tata shouted:
‘Are you crazy?
Are you? Crazy!’
Babcia picked up the pieces
As usual,
And mopped up the coffee.
Mama stamped her way
To the pantry to
Knead dough.
Tata turned up the television.
I had two parents then,
But I couldn’t be in two places,
So I sat with Babcia,
Away from them both.
Mama showed me the note from Tata
The day he disappeared.
Ola, I have gone to England
Is all he wrote.
I got no note.
And no mention in the one to Mama.
Mama cried for two whole years.
And Babcia held her all this time.
I didn’t cry, even though Tata forgot me,
Even though I had a right to cry.
Babcia said, ‘He didn’t leave you, Kasienka,’
Which was a lie.
Because he didn’t take me with him.
She just meant, Behave yourself –
I’m dealing with your mother.
Then a cheque came from Tata,
In an envelope
With a clear postmark.
And Mama knew what to do.
Now we share a damp bed
In a strange place.
Mama is still crying.
But Babcia isn’t here to hold her.
And my arms are too short for the job.
Rain
It rains relentlessly.
Rain
Rain
Rain.
All.
Day.
Long.
It is in my knuckles and my knees –
The damp.
And I’ve no galoshes
Or welly boots to wear.
So I wear my snow boots to school
To keep my feet dry.
The other children stare.
But I don’t care.
At least my feet are dry.
Mama says, ‘Don’t worry, Kasienka,
They have summers here too.’
But I don’t know
About that.
Swimming
Mama pays,
Reluctantly:
Presses two coins into my palm
As though she’s passing me a secret.
Tata taught me to swim.
Taught me to be strong.
It was no good grumbling
Or wrinkling my nose
Or crying – like a girl –
Tata didn’t care about that.
‘Kick your legs
From the hip,
Not the feet.
Now climb towards me
With your arms.’
After swimming Tata
Bought me ice cream:
Blueberry in a cup,
‘For my Olympian.’
I never want to
Paddle and play in the pool.
I’m here to work hard.
Do lengths.
Up and
Down,
Up and
Down,
The power of my own body
Fluent, fluid,
Propelling me forward
Like a pebble from
A catapult.
A boy from my school is here.
A boy from Year Nine,
I think.
He is perched on the edge of the diving board watching me.
Up and
Down,
Up and
Down.
And when I am below him
At the deep end,
He gets up, raises his arms,
And like a hunting hawk
Plunges into the water
Effortlessly.
Surfacing, he bobs about
Gazing again.
So I swim fast,
To outswim his stare
And make Tata proud,
Even though there’ll be no
Blueberry ice cream
Today.
I don’t know the diving boy,
The gawking hawk boy.
But he is in Year Nine.
And he is older than me.
Disco
A poster in the classroom
Announces a dance.
A disco.
For Year Seven.
Everyone’s excited.
And Everyone’s going.
Everyone but me.
For three reasons:
I’m twelve.
Almost thirteen.
Not eleven.
Deceiver
In the City Arcade
There is a shop where
Each item is one pound.
They sell everything
In that shop
For one pound.
Just one pound.
There are bags of chocolate for one pound.
And orange Halloween decorations.
They sell fairy wings
And cricket sets.
It’s astounding:
Everything one pound!
Mama picks up a box,
Turns it over in her hands.
It is just one pound.
But after inspection Mama
Puts it down, slowly,
And moves to the cashier
To pay for my socks and knickers.
It is a box of make-up –
Creams and powder shades:
For eyes and lips and cheeks.
In my pocket I have a five-pound note
Babcia gave me
Before I left.
And I want to buy Mama
The big box of make-up
She can’t afford
Or pay for my own socks.
But I want the five pounds too.
I want the five pounds more.
I make a fist around the note in my coat pocket.
‘Good girl, Kasienka,’ Mama says.
Mama says, ‘Good girl, Kasienka,’
Every day.
Even when I’m not so good.
Road Atlas
Mama found a map
In a shop called
The British Heart Foundation.
She says:
‘Tata is somewhere in this city,
And we are going to find him.’
She speaks like an officer
Commanding a line of troops –
Forgetting we are only two
And presuming I wish to enlist.
She unfolds the map
Across the floor
To prepare a plan of attack,
Flattens it carefully
And says:
‘This is where we live,’
And points, with a pencil,
To an empty space.
‘How lucky we are,
Kasienka, love.
So close to Tata.
He is here. Somewhere.’
Mama looks up and I clap gently,
Fraudulently applaud her project,
While my insides tighten at one question:
What happens if we find him?
Mama waves the pencil over the map<
br />
And it flutters from the movement in the air,
As her heart must flutter
Whenever she thinks of Tata.
I wish my heart did that
When I thought of him.
Or anyone.
But there is no space
In my belly for butterflies.
The Odyssey
I
Mama makes me knock and
I inch forward
To tap lightly –
Once.
But when Mama tuts
I knock again.
Once.
Twice.
Harder
This time.
A round man in a string vest appears.
He shakes his head, wags a furious finger.
‘No,’ he growls. ‘Whatever it is you want.’
Mama prods me.
Pushes me forward –
Me and my English.
‘We are looking for a man,’
Is all I can say
Because I am mesmerised by the puffy nipples
Poking through the holes in the man’s vest.
‘Do I look like some kind of poofter to you?
Get lost. Go on!’
He slams the door
In my face.
Just once.
HARD.
‘What’s a poofter, Mama?’ I ask.
‘A type of landlord, Kasienka,’ Mama says,
Very sure of her English.
II
The old lady wants to help.
She looks sorry
For not knowing more,
Tells us she will ask her friends
At Tuesday bingo
If they’ve seen Tata.
Her head rolls to one side,
Heavy with regret,
And this makes me feel
Very small.
III
There is no answer
At the next house,
Just drawn curtains
And a closed wooden door
With the paint peeling.
IV
When it gets dark,
I want to go home.
‘One more street, Kasienka,
Then home. I’ll make bigos,’ she says.
But Mama misunderstands.
When I say home, I don’t mean
The Studio.
V
She is too tired to make the bigos,
And throws together cheese sandwiches
For dinner instead.
Then she unfolds her map
And marks the streets we have searched.
‘It could take us for ever,’ I complain,
Though not too loudly,
For fear of pinching Mama’s mood.
‘You in a hurry to be somewhere else?’
Mama asks
And goes back to the map,
Leaving me to my pessimism and
French homework.
Kanoro
Kanoro lives in our building.
In the next room.
He shares a bathroom with Mama and me.
But he is not a nasty person:
He is beautiful.
He is blacker than anyone I have ever met.
Skin like
Wet ink.
And he scares me,
Until he smiles:
Pink,
All gums,
A smile that makes his eyes twinkle.
In Kenya he was a doctor.
‘For children,’ he explains.
Again the smile,
The gums.
The twinkle.
In Coventry he is a cleaner
At a hospital,
Like Mama.
‘I like to work in hospitals,’ Kanoro says.
Mama laughs:
‘They think you are nothing,
These receptionist women and porter men.
But you are better than them;
You are a doctor,
And they don’t know it.
Ignorant English.’
Kanoro shakes his head
And like stars at dawn
The twinkle disappears.
‘It is Kanoro who is ignorant,
If he thinks he is better.
There is honour in all things,’ he says.
Mama winces, then smiles.
And in her smile there is an
Inky glint.
When I Go Swimming Again
The staring boy is there,
Sitting on the tiles
With his feet in the water.
Kicking.
I hurry to the other end of the pool,
Head down,
Hands hiding my chest,
Planning to dive in,
To save myself.
But somehow I stumble
And fall,
Making a mighty
SPLASH
That attracts too much attention.
Mistaken
When Mama said,
‘We’re going to England,’
I didn’t see myself
Alone.
I knew I’d be different,
Foreign.
I knew I wouldn’t understand
Everything.
But I thought, maybe, I’d be exotic,
Like a red squirrel among the grey,
Like an English girl would be in Gdańsk.
But I am not an English girl in Gdańsk.
I’m a Pole in Coventry.
And that is not the same thing
At all.
Group Work
Five foreigners in my class
And, very strange,
Quite coincidentally,
Teachers never put us
To work in the same groups.
Each group must be given
Its fair share of duds.
No need to overburden
One particular person.
This isn’t prejudice:
None of the smart ones
Ever end up together,
None of the dim kids either,
Or the noisy, naughty ones.
Teachers aren’t stupid.
But maybe they think we are,
When they pretend to make
Random selections.
The teachers who do let us choose
Make the mistake of thinking
Everyone will find a place;
But there are always
One or two of us,
Left sitting,
Desperately scanning,
Hoping to be considered
By a group of unpopulars
With too few people
Before the teacher turns,
Detects the exclusion
And with a wagging finger says,
‘You! Work with them.’
There is eye rolling and chair scraping
As we shuffle forward,
Unwanted and misused,
Like old boots dragged
From a river.
William
The boy from the swimming pool,
The boy from Year Nine,
The watcher,
Is called William.
He tells me I’m a mean swimmer
And should be on the school team.
I didn’t know there was a team,
But I should be on it,
William says.
I’m mean,
William says,
Pushing his hair
Out of his eyes
And hitching up his jeans
Which are slipping around his hips.
He doesn’t say much more –
He just stares,
And this staring brings my dinner
Back into my throat:
Green beans and bacon.
I swallow it quickly.
And with twisted tongue tell him
I’m twelve,
Almost thirteen,
In case he thinks otherwise.
When I talk he l
ooks at me
Like I am amazing
And then he says,
‘Why are you in Year Seven?’
And I don’t want him to think
I’m stupid, so I have to say,
‘It’s because I’m Polish.
I’m in Year Seven because
I’m Polish.’
This is the truth
And yet, it is only
A small piece
Of it.
Small Secrets
I tell Mama about the swim team
But not about William.
‘No time for this, Kasienka,’
Mama says. ‘We have to find Tata.’
She points to the map
Pinned to the wall like ugly art.
I nod, yes, though I do not want to look for Tata –
Tata does not want to be found;
He is in hiding – he is hiding from us both,
A truth that makes me grind my teeth sometimes.
But I don’t tell Mama this,
Even when we’re searching.
Night after night,
Street after street,
One door at a time,
And it’s raining,
And I’m hungry,
And teary,
And tired,
Because hope is all Mama has.
And I cannot take it from her.