poem: war time mammy

 

Hulme, Manchester 1965, by Shirley Baker.

You think I don’t know how it grows?

How it gnaws little by little

down to moon white bone?

 

The chipped lip of plates

Yet her early onset dementia

Likens it to Persian Romeo and Juliet.

 

I wonder, how does a cheap dinner set

Liken to Persian Romeo and Juliet?

So slow the night, so short the-

 

red pattern outlines the plate,

of course, blue line intersects.

 

Clever woman, her schooling was profoundly political.

Got the charm of a poet and the smell of war

weaved into the fabric of her shawl.