Ice Skater

I could have been a prodigy

if I’d grown up in Upper Saxony,

in my father’s small town with big

lakes and forests and seven aunts,

all widowed in the war and

eager to teach me to ski, langlauf

and skate on ice by the age of three.

But that would mean rewriting history.

I learned at Streatham Arena,

an unsteady teenager, shuffling along

to the Wurlitzer Juke Box, …