OF KISSING AND SUCH 1960

A BOY AND GIRL IN LONDON IN 1960 AND THOUGHTS AND WORDS.

We were sitting on the grass
at the side of Arrol House
by Rockingham Street

Hannah  sipped
from a bottle of Tizer

where did your mum
meet your dad?
I asked her

in Scotland
during the War
Dad was stationed there
and Mum was working
in the Naafi
at an army base there
they married
then he went overseas
and was one of those
who helped liberate
Belsen concentration camp
in 1945
she said

she offered me the bottle
which I also sipped from

I was born in 1948
she added

her old man had told me
about Belsen once
when I asked him
about the War

what did your mum
say to him when
she first met him?
I said

whit dae ye want?
Dad said she said

and what did he say?
I asked
wiping the bottle top

gie us a kiss
he said

and what did your mum say?

gang kiss yer erse apparently
Hannah said laughing

I smiled too
and offered her back
the bottle

and they married
after that?

Hannah nodded
and said
odd thing love
no accounting
for taste or manners

she sipped
from the bottle
and then put it
beside her leg
then stared at me
with her dark eyes

how about
your mum and dad?
she said

they lived near each other
and married in 1947
then I came along
I said

have you ever
kissed a girl before?
she said

nothing serious
I said blushing
trying not to think
about Fay who had been
taken off with her mother
a few months back
and left me sad

have you?
I said

never kissed a girl before
she said
but I did kiss a boy
at a party last year
as a booby prize

did you want to kiss?
I said

not here where Mum
could see or she'll blow
a gasket
Hannah said

maybe some place else
she added

I thought about how
the cowboys in the films
I’d seen went about
kissing girls
but that was usually
the part of the film
where I shut my eyes
out of boredom
so I had no clue
what to do.