Heritage (Poetry)

For a moment I mistook her for her mum -
those slippers, grubby-pink against the grey
slabbed pavement, and that mane so brittle-blonde -
a light fantastic bush backcombed and spun
to candyfloss - as bright and false as plastic.

I knew her slightly in our Coca-Cola teens
of youth club discos, mini-skirted mods
that danced around piled handbags to the beat
vibrating through wood floors. Or slow-smooching
with arms draped like nubile tentacles hung

on denim-shouldered youths caught by sudden stabs
of ultraviolet, decibels and scent.
The oscillating beams picked out her face -
an oval pierrot-white with panda eyes,
thick-fringed holes exaggerated, sixties style.

And now, a caricature of that fresh miss,
coarse, autumn-textured skin betrays her curls.
I think "poor cow" - those stubbled legs, leaf-veined,
stale flesh grown stout to fit her mother's mould,
well-past her prime yet too young to look this old.

(Note: First published under the name Jean M. Thomas)