What We Remember

What We Remember
(For Summer)

How Dadcu wore his belt buckled at the back,
pulled so tight around his skinny waist
the tops of his trousers

fluted like piecrust; how he swallowed raw eggs,
breaking the yolk in the chamber of his throat;
how the fire roared

behind yesterday’s paper stretched across its mouth
and Granny melted cheese in dishes on the grate,

kept an open tin of condensed milk for tea.
The lumpy featherbed, the musty wardrobe,
a chocolate coloured fur coat.

And what will she remember? Her granddad
throwing her in the air, the fat china woman
on the edge of my bath,

the window at floor level in her bedroom
looking down on red tiled roofs,
sheep in long grass, the apple orchard?

Or the day we smeared our faces
with burnt cork and she said
You are my best friend. But no,

that is what I’ll remember, and how she asked
Why do you make that funny face
when you look in the mirror?


Lynne Rees

Posted over on Applehouse Poetry