Giving News
'Mind, if he's anything like his dad he'll be observant; You were barely talking and said "Granma, why have you got Hairs on your lip?" — And your mum did vex!' Those hairs are there now As she speaks, a downy tash on flesh that cracks and works loose.
She has taken fifteen rings to totter from the kitchen To sit at this table where a vase of fading freesias And one half-emptied pepperpot anticipate the news, The black receiver too large and trembling in her charred hand.
'But you don't forget that moment they let you hold your first . Her elbows are out at the skin, the tips of two fingers Diverge at oblique angles, the clenched vowels of her accent Edge the wiry distance south: 'So, I can go happy now', As if in the next seconds she would bend to dowse the fire And fumble with the buttons of her coat. Instead she sits And she is, brittle, upright in a hush of shifting coal, A hush like the aftermath of Mass, flames noiselessly snuffed.
Adrian Blackledge
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