“Don’t Waste Money On Me Dear”
The white, recycled cardboard cost fifty pounds.
A giant shoe box. But even shoes
are given the dignity of tissue-paper.
She’d left me her legacy of needlework
so with sale-time broderie anglaise
I snipped, threaded and thimbled
just as I had trimmed the baby cradle.
A frill around the top. But still
something seemed missing. Every dress
she’d ever made for me had pockets.
I stitched a square at hand-level,
tucked in a brand-new flowered hankie
and photographs of her beloved grandchildren.
Cutting rosemary from the front bush
I told her the good things I remembered,
adding rue …
When the layette was ready, so was I.
It was hard to find a roomy hire car.
The armful of lilies seemed right
to echo her wedding bouquet,
and from the market a plastic pot
of sea pink, that used to grow
wild on her childhood cliffs,
elevated by lace remnants
on the day it crowned the lid.
It’s thriving now in my rock-garden.
Finally I think I pleased her.
Page(s) 14
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The