Holiday snaps

‘Do you want to see my photographs?’
she asks a lady in the staff canteen.
All of us on the early shift
know how much she’d been looking forward
to going to her sister’s house in Southend

and although it sounded boring to us her sister
means the world to her and she loves those kids
and was saying how much her brother in law needed time off and this meant
she could take them to the beach

while their parents stayed in bed and read the papers.
And we know how upset she was that by the end of the weekend
All three little ones had such bad sunburn.
She knows she should have made sure they had put their lotion on

but with the excitement she forgot herself
and when she woke up she felt her sore neck and shoulders and heard
crying from the bunkbeds
and on the train home she felt awful for even itching her forearms

But in the canteen she is so happy saying:
these are us the sandcastles we made
these are us with ice creams
this is us in the sea.