Auntie Kate's Wake in My Parent's House
Of course we went back to the house afterwards,
ham on the good plates, and every room
as cold and smaller than it was.
Look I said, for something to say,
this is the room I slept in
when she came to stay
in her scratchy coat with the buttons
she polished on her sleeve and the hat that dipped
that she tried to make straight with the iron
and a cloth all steaming only it wouldn’t
and she said what can’t be cured
must be endured I always say. There was
a special colour came in when she came. They said
for her to have my bed and me the lumpy one
in the room with the funny smell
and the floor that made my slippers come off.
Sometimes she didn’t come to say goodnight
even when I counted and counted
the little hard buttons on the lumpy bed
like the noughts in noughts-and-crosses. One time
they went away on the train and she came
and she washed me in the sink
bubbles popping on my knees
and her slippy hands and her pink shiny frock
got wet all over and she didn’t shout
she laughed and she said well
I wasn’t born dry was I?
We shouldn’t he standing here I said
with the mangle and the tea-cloths ironed in piles
and the cold.
We should be shaking people’s hands and saying
yes she was she was.
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