Rigmarole
When great-grandma Mur’d been
lying in bed downstairs all those years
slowly growing blind and no longer
able to lift herself onto
the green satin-seated commode,
grandma would give her a bed-bath,
a rigmarole. The temperature
of the water needed to be just right,
she swished cold from the tap
with hot from the kettle,
dropped in the soap and flannel
and lugged the bowl through to the front room
where Mur lay beneath the window.
We’d ease her into a sitting position,
lift her nightdress over her washboard back,
tie up her hair, lank with sweat and coal-dust
from the fire, and grandma would
scrub at her mother’s back
in big wild circles,
her mouth clamped tight,
her reddened knuckles whitening.
She’d rub round Mur’s neck the way
she once did when washing us
in the tin bath, then she’d reach under
and swipe the flannel beneath Mur’s thin breasts,
the little grey drops running down into
the creases of her belly and over the smooth
white patch where hair should’ve been.
She sat hunched over, her eyes closed
as a child’s might be, waiting for the flannel
to finish its stuff.
Page(s) 26
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