Feeding Time at the Bone Factory

There is a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
from Anthem. Leonard Cohen

No Mum,
You won’t be coming homing today.

Plastic spoon ferries mush
To tea-bruised lips; her palms
Feebly pull my finger:
Spider-web hands thread herstory thru
Bone ridge of mountain stream,
Songstress, seamstress, undresses
Treacherous ice from cold days.

The dementia mist fell as final curtain
Shakes the Gods’ spears to fade the lights

Out with Romany again
Travel lightly….
Tell me what the redwing sees,
Skim pebbles o’er haunted dance floors.
Departed daughters of Cymru
Lay their kitchen table for another.

Dying next to the end of the family line:
“Dear Mum, the decision wasn’t mine.”
I whisper only this,
Sealed in our breath.

A nurse’s cough
Echoes across decades,
Ten years short of a century & you
Always said ‘eleven is my lucky number.’
No telegram from the Queen.

Yes Mum,
You will be going home very soon.