SNAPSHOTS

Through a crack in my life

my mother’s heavy white breasts

on Christmas eve – that mother

was black and white, a Tiller Girl

with friends on a park bench

wind in their hair, legs swinging left.

Slim and shapely beside my father

sparkling brooch and earings,

his presence a bonus.

Standing in lush grey grass, cooing

to my shape in a shawl, a cat

called Sandy curled round her feet.

Colour creeps in, urine trickling

down her legs in the lemon hallway

turning from my father’s death bed.

Then a gladiator sweeping her up

retiring her at sixty, kissing goodbye

to staff nights out.

Thin, padded out in blue chunky

in the park of my childhood showing

my son secret paths, teaching him

how to spend time like a waterfall.

I see the speed of death is flat

worn as a photograph.

Published in SLOW DANCER 1992