Jane Routh
The Spires
It no longer reaches the three words forward
to the end of a sentence, but my mother's memory
stretches as far back as whooping cough,
the racking sound and the exact words
her mother spoke: Be silent, child:
others need their sleep for work.
Two rooms, ten children, all gone but her.
She likes to recite the names and savour
their deaths in their gardens. A family blessing
to die forking the earth. She remembers
the day her mother died,
she remembers saying Dr Creasey you must
save my mother. She was lifted out
through the window on a plank and no last words.
That was in a strange country where men
were called Hereward and there were no hills.
Conversation was ruled by The Forty Foot.
To shorten a car journey into the fens,
I was told to count spires. There was a place
where you could see thirteen.
Sometimes my mother can name them all,
her parents buried below one, the eldest sister
by another - that grave's been kept decent,
my mother says, sodium chlorate, so it'll last.
When I ask about her mother's grave
she's unsure, says you need good weather.
Yet again I stop short, fail to ask
where she will go.
to the end of a sentence, but my mother's memory
stretches as far back as whooping cough,
the racking sound and the exact words
her mother spoke: Be silent, child:
others need their sleep for work.
Two rooms, ten children, all gone but her.
She likes to recite the names and savour
their deaths in their gardens. A family blessing
to die forking the earth. She remembers
the day her mother died,
she remembers saying Dr Creasey you must
save my mother. She was lifted out
through the window on a plank and no last words.
That was in a strange country where men
were called Hereward and there were no hills.
Conversation was ruled by The Forty Foot.
To shorten a car journey into the fens,
I was told to count spires. There was a place
where you could see thirteen.
Sometimes my mother can name them all,
her parents buried below one, the eldest sister
by another - that grave's been kept decent,
my mother says, sodium chlorate, so it'll last.
When I ask about her mother's grave
she's unsure, says you need good weather.
Yet again I stop short, fail to ask
where she will go.
Jane Routh's Circumnavigation (Smith/Doorstop 2002) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.
Page(s) 27
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