fish for lunch

Fish for lunch

For breakfast, I opened a tin of sardines in oil
I don’t care for any fish, but it was all I had in the larder
My mother used to work at a canning factory
putting sardines in a tin, she and other women sat
by a conveyer belt working fast for a lousy income.
When she came home, the unsavoury smell followed
clung to her like an old winter coat, wet and formless
yet making its presence unavoidable.
We didn’t have a bathroom, but every Saturday mother
took the tin bath down from the wall, which was
when we children had to sit in the hallway while she
bathed, telling each other ghost stories.
There was no TV back then we didn’t have a phone
if people were sick, the ambulance arrived too late.
There were children’s hours with stories of princesses
and kings in a big castle never thought how grotesque
the tales screamed of inequality.
Life is strange who would think I would end up in
a big apartment with a sea view; I gave the tin of sardines
to the neighbour’s cat.