Sandra Guy
Grandma Clay
She’s a Chinese-styled tomb memory
Made in a thunderstorm
With a cup that never stays cupped in her hands
But tilts the way her head inclines
Coquettishly over one shoulder.
She has a pencil point for a widow’s peak
Lines of hair drawn tightly back
A skewed hole for a mouth and no nose.
But it’s her dry-cracked cloak that haunts
Intricate as a beach when the waves have eased back
And sand spiders spew patterns
Over its slick surface and puddles reflect the sky.
Or it’s that cloth a traveller brought back from Arabia
First camels, silver threads, gold and fuchsia deserts
An oasis for a practical mind
Bound by potatoes, children
A man at the front.
I like to think of her sitting by the camphor chest
Unwrapping the plastic, fingering the colours
The fine strands egging her on to dream of whiter sand
Away from the filthy cold of Withernsea
Where wind blasts through you
Like gingersnaps from the market
Leaving your tongue cold.
Page(s) 87
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