Member Poem

I could never remember when
or where or how we got The Box.

It was just sitting there one day,
on the lounge room floor,
brown, big enough to fit a huge, enormous, gigantic television in.

Nana said
“I got this from work, I hope you have fun, but whatever you do, don’t get in the way of Pop when he’s watching TV, but other than that, the box is
all yours.”

All Yours?
Matt and I looked excitedly at The Box.

I know, I know! It can be a fish n chip shop,
yeah, Chris n Mary’s fish n chip shop
we could sell flake and potato cakes
n you need the chicken salt, yeah, gotta have chicken salt.

So that day, we pretended I was Mary n Matt was Chris
And we cooked fish all day,
Sometimes I would be a customer and sometimes Nana would be too.
Pop wasn’t home when we played Chris n Mary’s fish n chip shop
He would have liked it though.

The next day,
we got to Nana n Pop’s and The Box was where it was, right where we left it.

I know, I know! It can be our camping tent,
yeah, like the tent we had when we went camping,
we could have torches and bears and maybe a ghost story.
(I don’t like ghost stories).

So that day, we pretended we were camping,
the teddies served as scary animals,
Sometimes I would say to Matt, Okay, time to go to sleep now, and make snoring noises, but I was
just trickin’.
Pop would have liked to hear about trickin’ Matt, he was a jokester.
But he was at work.

The next day, Nana said
“Alright, Zig n Zag, time to clean up,
the other grandkids are coming
they will like The Box too
So make sure it is all neat n tidy for when they come.”

The other grandkids? The grandkids would play with The Box too?
Matt said
I don’t like that Alex. He always throws rocks at me. He is annoying and mean.
Nana said
“Now, that only happened once Matty, you be nice and play with the kids.”
I sulked too. Everyone thought Jemma was prettier than me.
(Well, except Pop.
But he was at work.)

The other grandkids arrived.
Matt said
Hey Alex, hey, hey, want to decorate The Box? We could make it into a house for you and Megan.
Yeah, with Narnies in  Parjarmies.
Yeah!
Anthony took the textas.
He scribbled over the box. Now it said something like this:
Chris n Marys fish n chips
lisa and matts tents
dugewgufygewjfewifj (stupid kids wreck everything, can’t even decorate boxes properly)
so we tried to take away the textas, but Alex held on tight to a whole of em bunch and ran away to the kitchen.
Then, that naughty Jemma just cried and said we were hogging The Box.
“There, there,” said Nana, giving her a cuddle, frowning.

Me n Matt, we sat in OUR box.
Our scribbled-over, messy box.

It wasn’t Chris n Mary’s fish n chip shop, it wasn’t our camping tent, it was just a box.

The next day,
the box was not sitting on the lounge room floor.
the box was gone. Pop was home, watching the cricket, saying things like ‘ahh, ya old mophead’ at the telly.

Where’s the box gone, Pop? Matt said
“Nana left it outside last night and now it is all wet.”
so, we can’t play with it?
“No.”
I didn’t know it rained last night, Pop
“Well, it did, when you were sleeping.
We’ll take you out for some ice cream later if you two be good.”

We never saw the box again.

(and part of me always thought that Nana was unhappy about the decorations too, but she could never play favourites.)