'FRAKTA' by Rosaleen Lynch

We carry on, though we’re burgled, and we pretend we’re watching TV and the VCR, playing videos of the dog, gone, and Da number one, gone, and Da number two, gone, and number three, never wanted the name, but gone all the same, and we carry their pictures in our heads and Mam projects them onto the wall with her mind and we both add sound, and though we seem to be burgled every last Friday of the month, we carry on, buy the TV and VCR back from the hock shop, and carry on, but sometimes they’re gone and we upgrade, or downgrade, depends on what’s on sale but we carry home a portable TV and VCR in my blue IKEA bag, just the same, so we can play our tapes, that no one ever nicks, cos no one will buy them Mam says, and anyway no one can steal them from where we carry them in our heads, but I hide the video with my name with the folded blue IKEA bag under my bed; the video Da number two makes of our dog before he leaves, taking the dog, and the video camera, TV and VCR, and we carry on; the same video that has Da number one, before he leaves, carrying Mam, when she’s carrying me, and we carry on; the same video with me in the blue IKEA bag, Mam gets from a charity shop and turns the sides out and over, and lines with her clothes to make me a bed, and carries me in it until I get too big and I’m able to carry it myself, and now she’s gone, I will do as she taught me and carry her in my head and carry on.