A middle-aged Venus
I rise from the depths
of the Northern Line
out under the canopy
...
The early sun
wrapping gaunt limbs in khaki, gold and black.
Like victims of a famine
...
My mother was a staunch member of the Women's Institute in the village where she lived the last thirty-five years of her life. This poem is about an incident that took place at about the same time as the Watergate scandal in the United States.
She flicks the switch, the room is bugged.
She smiles to think the girls she’s hugged
...
What shall I give you for Christmas? I said.
What a question! you complained.
OK, I said, I'll give you something
nice and smelly from the Body Shop.
...
The spirit of Christmas
is lying in wait for me
round corners of raw streets
where neighbours in thin
...
Sometimes I'm old on the outside
and young on the inside.
Sometimes I'm young on the outside
...
1.
When she was thirty-five
my mother said, “I shall be dead
when I am fifty-three
...
Shadows of our former selves
wait for us at the turnings of conversations
in cul-de-sacs where there is no turning
in lies told, half-told and left unsaid,
...
Eyed by pigeons and the tall windows
of elegant cream mansions
she and he enter the court.
Father and daughter, mentor and child,
...