CRAZY CANARY YELLOW
(In Memory Of My Mother Ita Dempsey)

Bright skin tight
a crazy canary yellow

jeans
my pride & joy

(my first Versace)  

took a lot
of *****

to wear ‘em
but then

I got
‘em!

My mother hated
(with a vengeance)   them

(hated to pieces)  
them

until one morning early
up with the crow of the ****

I cut them
myself to pieces

“Snick snack! ” sniggered
the scissors

(good for a laugh)  

threw the shreds of the threads
up upon the roof

let an hour or so
pass

and then discovering
my own(the devil’s)   handiwork

accused her
of the dastardly deed.

Who else(I said)  
wanted the jeans dead?

Who hated them
with such a passion

to do such...such
a thing.

Maybe she thought...
“I did it in my(God forgive)   sleep.”

“Although I know
I didn’t do it

it’s what I would have wanted done.”

After hours
struggling like a worm

I let her off the hook
confess it was I

that done them
(the jeans)    in.

She annoyed at the spoof
that took her in

but delighted at the demise
of those **** things.

The hearty laugh of then
the feeble smile of now

as she(here is this hospital)  
tries not to die.

*

It was the last time we laughed through that story. I was on my own with her and was just trying to chat to her like we always did. I also sang her the Nat King Cole version of Autumn Leaves in Japanese that she loved. She told me that I was always " a romantic auld ejeet!" So the poem begins yet again with the telling of this old chestnut and brings it bang up to date and here we find ourselves in her final moments. Usually after the telling and sharing of this tale and a good laugh I would make her a cup of tea and we would be off on some other remembrance....this time it is the last telling of the story.