PINNING MOTHER DOWN


"I always..." she put forth
" ...remember Mother
as a delicious smell

like an apple
pie cooling down
or a heated up dinner."

"Though now..." she corrected
her put-forth-remark
"...as the nasty smell

of her elastic pale pink
roll-on corset.
Always gave me the shivers!"

her words stood forth
upon the air as if they
had been carved from there

pronouncements:
never
just mere speech

"Or that stink of mangy fox
stole she never wore
that always hid

at the back of her wardrobe
its beady little eyes
daring me to come nearer

so it could
( and I knew it would )
bite me in two

or her knitting
that the cat
always peed on

( she couldn't smell
a thing herself
poor dear )

her scarves
always smelling
of Tiddles

yes, Mother was as
perfect as Michaelmas daises
in a vase

although she always
pronounced it
vas/e not va/se

she was always such
a difficult woman
to pin down


*


Visiting a friend in a ward....got taken over by the lady in the poem who thought I was her husband and started going on about her Mum. I didn't know the lady but for that short time she made her Mum immensely real to me. Her name was Betty as was her Mum.

Also curiously enough she never said "she said..." but rather "she put forth...."