Then I'll Begin

We look like
Chess pieces, so opposite, holding hands.
You with your golden rapunzel hair in a plait on one side,
Your head slightly leaning with the weight of it.
Me, ebony. Dark, inpenetrable hair. I would console myself
With dreams of Snow White, while they told me of
Flaxen daughters spinning straw into gold.
In the sun and playground disputes, you might disappear at any moment.
Sometimes I would reach to meet
Nothing but air.
You, so delicate, so translucent, vanilla ice-cream
And two grey rock pools for eyes. Watery and always scared.
And you lived in a terrace on a hill that went up and up
Until it became moorland. Dark and damp and topped
With a salt and a pepper pot, for a giant’s tea, where
The hill reached the clouds, clouds that hovered darkly
Like a frown across the dinner table
And we would skitter and giggle through your front gate
To be met and kissed by your Mummy, deb-or-rah. A beautiful, slight wife of a King
Who sat us down in the small warm room that was your sitting
And your dining room
All in one
And combed our hair out.
A hundred times, each.
We were best friends. It was right. Our lives like
Jigsaw pieces; my mum and your mum drank tea
And swapped Clothkits patterns
While my little A and your Matthew dribbled at each other
In baby bouncers. And we would bite our lips in glee
And predict marriage, weddings,
Our eternal sisterhood,
The friendship of our fairy godmothers,
Storybook endings and fishfingers for tea