The old armchair
Leaving the mizzle
I turn Mam’s front door key
into emptiness -
step into her parlour,
gold velour drapes the window bay;
keepsakes scatter any gloom
and past guests brush by -
a spread of tea and cakes, gossip
stirred with laughter.
Now silence overwhelms,
like that moment she mistook
a neighbour for Uncle Ray.
I take down her adored pictures,
pack water colour memories
into boxes. China ladies swim
with glass fish, grandparents
smiling from embossed albums.
I polish the sixties stereogram
until it gleams and still her armchair,
reupholstered in olive brocade,
the suite’s sole survivor, stands
by the window, dusty
and frayed, swallowing me
into – eighteen and kissing
on the sofa, open mouths
trembling, parents watch
Bonanza, volume turned up.
Dad squeezes my hand,
the wedding car is running late
and it’s starting to rain.
Nursing my boys, I inhale
happiness, humming along to
‘All I Have to do is Dream’.
Cardigan inside out, Mam waits
for the doctor, her bible upside down
unsweetened tea half drunk and cold.
I reach for her photo, taken last year,
snuggle into time-worn arms,
whisper goodbye as she fades -
outside the clouds open.
Releasing a deluge, I hear -
It’s only a chair love.
Celestial Spectator
Intent, I watch you congregate to pay
your last respects, reciting snips of script
like actors from an ill-remembered play,
attired in pious masks. I listen gripped
as voices swell in favoured hymns I sang
before a mass of tangles plagued my mind.
I weigh each wilted friendship with a pang
of melancholy. Desolate, I'd pined
for company and watched you pass my street
to pray for me in church. I longed to hear
your laughter, lift me from my window seat;
imprisoned there my life became austere
Religiously you mouthed my name in prayer;
it’s now too late to demonstrate your care.
Flight of the dragonfly 