There's a certain sadness in me today.
I was remembering back to the home
we lived in when I was a little kid:
Two up and two down. One in a row
of twenty, and indistinguishable
unless, like me, you found it by rote:
Seventh on the right, from the high end,
with a bright green door and red doorstep.

I had a little girlfriend named Maisie 
who lived five green doors down.
We used to play together after school
sitting facing each other on the floor
beneath her family's dining table,
backs against it's stout oak legs.
I can still remember the faded
pattern on their threadbare rug.

We played snap with a wellworn pack
missing a Queen and all but one Ace.
I always ended up with the spare Ace,
and Maisie with the very tattered Queen.
When it was time for her bed, Audrey,
her mum, would say, "Time you went home, Rick"
and she'd stand watching at her front door
until I went into mine just up the road.

Out the back of our house stood
our disused brick built bomb shelter.
I used to sneak in there to hide
and the musty slightly damp smell
is in my nose every time I remember
that shelter. Reminds me of mushrooms.

An only child I used to play in there

with an old glass milk bottle full

of water and a chipped old cup
I'd have playtime solo tea parties.
Or I would go in there after Maisie's,
until mum came home from work,
and imagine Maisie serving me tea.

Maisie died. She got run over by a bus.
I was only just ten, she was nine.
One day on the way back from the doctor's
Mum took me into the church yard
and showed me Maisies white headstone.
I remember her telling me how hard
it had been for her family to buy a stone
and how much they had saved and saved.
I cried a little. I well remember that.
When we got home I went into the shelter
and told Maisie that I loved her.

What made me go back to those childhood days
was the news of a little northern boy, Noah,
who has been missing but has been found.
Like Maisie he had died. But he had drowned.
Little Noah was only six years old.
Now whenever I think of Maisie It'll
be hard not to remember Noah too.
So many people to remember these days
Laying in bed at night before sleep,
thanking the Universe for everything

and everyone, then turning over

and kissing darling Bliss goodnight.

© griffonner 2026