end-to-end

In the evening cool
I lugged the watering can
sloshing with water, heavy,
up and down the garden -
up and down the steps -
I drained the butt dry

I remember the upright
metal can of my
childhood, carried by
small hands from the kitchen - it was
almost too heavy, the strain - to
my father to water
the back garden plants

I revisit a book
I read on the last
family holiday I remember
the long string
the never-ending refrain
stretching from this day
to those: memories
are kept for such things:
the burdens of our palms:
we hold fast.

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