Her kitchen, quiet, layered with dust,

aged a decade deep,

Her table laid and draped in cloth

before she fell asleep.

The oven framed her bread of crust,

sliced up for all to keep.

Time unwound and ticked no more,

before she fell asleep.

Three shirts to dry lay mouldy, in a musty

laundered heap.

Her life had spun in cycle,

before she fell asleep.

...

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I dreamt of my mother’s egg-blue peg bucket

and how the clatter of rain

on the scullery window sent

her heartbeat racing.

I remember us scurrying

down the backyard

to free her hung dry clothes

from their pegged wooden captors.

She watched as we yanked disrespectfully,

faded jeans and t-shirts flailing

and the pegs snapping,

reluctantly letting go.

I remember wat...

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It was the copper-green crust on 

salt fingers that hinted

the well was dry.

It had been months, years even,

of arid unconscious blessings.

A ritual, like the quick of bitten nails,

formed in the dousing of us weans.

It had been our mother’s blessing, 

foreheads drenched on each departing. 

Her three fingered aspergillum

observed from the flickering neon.

Bles...

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