My mother's friend, bleak-mouthed, took me to St Matthews in cinder glory & kept her eye on the thin gold leaf spread across colonies of saint's faces.
No, I'll never forget sitting in the blue car with my mother when she told me Eileen's brother had killed their parents.
Eileen moved to Bristol & got married. She made calls that rattled my mother, sent fruitcakes long distance.
When my father died, she couldn't stop herself from insulting him; my mother forgave.
A year later, she died swimming - my mother's mind leaned back fifty years & remembered someone.
I... I remember only St. Matthews, the way the windows below the azure dome hissed with light, & how Eileen - indifferent to religion - explained the rules of the candles for the dead.