Advantage Mum
Her ladder was never umpire green,
but whenever Wimbledon is on, I picture
an earlier version of my Mum, busy up one.
Scarf tight around her head, painting the bedroom
I shared with my brother, as the tock of ball
on racquet punches from the radio.
I’m staring up at her, half-attentive, as Borg
icily repels another zinger, from McEnroe,
that raging, furry, Yankee ball of shout.
Some distant, red-headbanded summer ago.
She never seemed to stop, Mum, a blur of action,
racing off the baseline, into tight domestic corners.
Returning awkward drop shots from us kids. Dashing
off to Fine Fare, green-shield stamps in hand,
or serving at her own bookshop, further into town.
Then casually volleying another meal across the net,
each night. Firing past her father, as he said something
sarcy about the news, or football, mug of tea in hand.
Or backhanding our own Dad, with an eye-roll,
as he sat thinking at his desk, while she held court,
apparently unfazed, score fixed at Mother Love.
On Brandon Hill
The tower arrives abruptly. Unseen above the trees,
then smack it’s in your face. A lollipop of stone,
an architectural mirage, turned on by a switch.
Candy stripes of pink and cream, forcing you to wonder
how you missed the thing before. Built to crow and crown
an ancient hill. Stiffly proud, in celebration of Cabot landing
in America. Long before it took that name. But look past
the official version, you’ll come to recognise the site –
for centuries a haunt of hermits – holds deeper magic.
Surely this edifice was, in truth, set here by a mage?
As lookout post, giant mapping pin, an elevated finger,
pointing out the world beyond our crestfallen old port city.
Marking routes from near to far, with engraved arrows,
etched into elbow-rubbed brass plaques, on parapets up top.
Highlighting geographic gaps, between Bristol and elsewhere:
Monmouth, Swansea, Lisbon, London. Dublin, Delhi, Paris,
New York and the rest. Distances I thought unbridgeable,
before I sensed a planet pressing in, if anything, too close.
An uncertain age
To be old, when I was young, was an abstract.
An affliction, of other people. Like my grandpa,
who confused me, by insisting that inside
he was 16. “I’ll never use a bloody stick”, he said,
in defiance of shot knees, an over-weighty frame.
Preferring the tooth-clenched dignity of a lean
on grandson, or full-length umbrella. Bound to bend
and break and fail. As he did at the end: shaving neatly,
sitting down, heart bursting, to stop him from being old.
Flight of the dragonfly 