Valerie Blomfield
My mother - two mothers
Sound of screeching
Oaths in old English
And Yiddish curses.
Feel of your hand slapping me.
Smell of sex on your fingers in the morning.
Taste of overcooked vegetables.
Sight of your face distorted
As you rage.
Smell of my fear of you.
* * * * *
Taste of roast potatoes -
Crunchy edges,
Sharp ketchup, on Billy Cotton Sundays.
Feel of sitting on your
Plumply-snuggly lap -
Sight of your henna-bright hair, now grey.
Sound of your wry laughter at yourself;
Sight of you dancing like a child
With my children.
Sound of your incoherent senility:
Feel of my brush as I lovingly dress your hair -
Saying, as you once did, "Aah, aah, bubbelah."
Sight of your dead body -
Spooky white,
Your face cold on my lips.
Page(s) 37
magazine list
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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