Halcyon grass in absent wind;
your conscience drifts away.

Alone, you watch the rising tide;
above, it ties you in.

Lost, lost, lost;
as you were, among the reeds...

Anny Horowitz doesn’t run down
the shopping aisles
as your grandchildren do,
she holds the trolley,

steadying it with her hand,
your ghostly friend,
your little Jew.
None sees her form,

her bright blue eyes,
her blonde hair
tied with ribbon,
her rosy complexion.

She ghostly moves,
amazed by the Aladdin’s cave
of goods upon the shelves,
the packets and boxes,

the loud advertisements
hanging from the air
here and there,
everywhere you

and she stare.
Neither Strasbourg
nor Bordeaux
nor Tours

nor Auschwitz
was like this,
no overpowering display
of commodities on show

of this she tells you
and to a degree you know,
and what was on show
at Auschwitz is still there

in memories or records
or photographs
with staring faces
and deep set eyes.  

Anny waits and watches
as the conveyor belt
moves the goods
to the woman

at the till
who pushes buttons
or scans bar codes
and pushes by

to the paid for end
and your son
and grandchildren
pack all away.

Anny gazes on the process,
then at you, smiles,
your little friend,
your ghostly Jew.

We are both the good eggs
Beating hearts and loving minds
These little bits of pure joy
Light our world up from inside

And that's what keeps me going
And that's what gets me through
When each and every morning
My waking thought finds you

Janice sat beside you
on the bombsite
off Meadow Row
looking towards

the New Kent Road
watching the people
and traffic pass
you with your catapult

and she with the doll
her gran had bought her
from the market in the Cut
Gran said those are dangerous

Janice said
pointing at the catapult
not if you’re careful
and responsible

you said
but they fire stones
she said
guns fire bullets

you said
they can **** people
David killed Goliath
with a stone

she said
I heard it in church
I only fire at tin cans
or other such targets

you said
she looked at the sky
at pigeons flying overhead
what about birds?

she asked
no I don’t shoot at birds
although I did fire
at a rat once

but missed
and it ran off
I hate rats
she said

there was one
on our balcony once
and it frightened me to death
you laughed

you remember that coalman
who stomped on that one
along the balcony by your flat?
yuk

she said
horrible blood and guts
everywhere
and on his boot

you said
she hugged her doll
close against her
don’t remind me

you studied the doll
in her arms
the way it was close
to her chest

her hands caressing
the painted china head
the yellow flowered dress
and small white socks

and black plastic shoes
you’d make a good mum
you said
watching her rock

the doll in her arms
do you think so?
she asked
yes

you said
maybe one day
I will have a real baby
she said

and rock it to sleep
and feed it with a bottle
and burp it
and change its *****

like I saw a lady do
in the toilets
of Waterloo station
and Gran said

it wasn’t hygienic
not there of all places
Gran said
I’d have to have

a peg on my nose
if I had to change
a baby’s *****
you said

I think men
have weaker stomachs
than women do
she said

I think mothers
are given stronger stomachs
when they have babies
it’s God way of helping them

deal with babies
I’d rather have a catapult
than a baby
you said

or a doll
do you want to hold my doll
and I can hold your catapult?
she asked

no thanks
you replied
if my mates saw me
I’d never live it down

she kissed the doll’s head
and said
likewise
but there was a smile

on her lips
and a sparkle
in her eyes
and a beauty

in the way she sat
in her orange coloured dress
and bright red beret hat.

Bath times as a child were
a mixture of joy and fear,
Lulu remembers, rubbing
her neck dry after her bath,
holding her long hair out of
the way with her spare hand.

You must wash under the arms
and your neck and between
your legs, her mother said to
her as a child, leaning over her,
pouring hot water over her head,
feeling she was drowning, she
remembers, sitting on the edge
of the bathtub, almost seeing
her mother standing there with
her usual critique and that wet
hand slapping her legs or hand
if she missed an area of skin.

Lulu rubs under her arms, raises
her hand upward as if reaching
for the moon or stars. As she
leans forward to rub her feet,
pushing the towel between toes,
she recalls her putting her feet
into her mother’s lap as she dried
them with harsh rubs, pushed
the towel between toes roughly,
causing wittingly or unwittingly
the long after remembered pain.

Her mother, hard as granite,
with reddened hands and stern
stare, cursed in the bed of her final
days, glared at Lulu as she blanket
washed her mother in the last weeks
before death came for her and carried
her off with her foul words filling the air.

Lulu lays the towel over her lap, sitting
still she leans her elbows on her legs
and hides her face in her palms, wishing
her mother could have gone out not
with curses or swear words, but psalms.