You must remember this

In Competition No. 3131 you were invited to submit a poem beginning ‘Yes. I remember…’ This challenge was suggested by a reader who was very taken with Adrian Bailey’s poem ‘First Love’, a riff on Edward Thomas’s much-loved ‘Adlestrop’, published recently in this magazine. The winners, in an entry that provided a bracing blast of new year nostalgia, earn £25 each.

Yes, I remember Germolene — the densely-pink tinned-salmon hue, its smell, round tin, unwonted gloss like warm and antiseptic glue. It soothed each graze from roller skates. Those tumbles from the playground swings? — anaesthetised. It smelt of care, did Germolene. And other things. One of the family: its strength was ways to cure and keep us cleaner, and one imaginary friend (my sister’s) was called Germolena. All through the bumps of growing up its company has meant we thrive as the not-too-scarred or wound-marked ones but truly what we are: survivors. D.A. Prince Yes. I remember Superman, Originally called Kal-El, A hero from another world Who served Earth’s human family well. Our yellow sun endowed him with Great strength and speed. Plus, he could fly. No gun or bomb could injure him. He beamed a heat ray from each eye. His native world blew up. Its shards Became a lethal green debris That weakened him and pained him with The spectre of mortality. We lack his powers, but this truth He learned is one we also know: Some fragments from our origin Will find us everywhere we go. Chris O’Carroll Yes. I remember Whathisname. His eyes were blue, or maybe brown. He always wore a cheerful look, Or was that look a mournful frown? He used to chatter on nonstop, But wait … was he the silent one? The time I used to spend with him Was boring, right? Or was it fun? I do recall as clear as day I loaned him twenty quid and he Never paid me back. But wait. He might have loaned the quid to me. How’s he doing? Is he dead? Does he remember me as well? Please pass on my fond regards.