Here's Where I Keep My Costume Jewelry Words Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to my Grandmother, words in apple pie order-
(but don't look into the sock drawer, please) ]

here's where I keep my costume jewelry words
and the everyday china. forget me not I cried much
later thinking on those days

of the many coloured mirrors, beads and
silken stuffs she flung my way
looking for her spectacles

or gilded wrapping paper; paradisical leisures.
try this on, dear;
here's a scarf to match...and stomachers of

venetian lace; and bridal pearls, a single strand.
how can I make you understand

her stores of stories gleaming in the afternoons when
we wore only green, green

as the glades are in the ancient poems.
come to stay? she always said
her wands at the ready every Saturday

or on the Christmas holidays
or only after school

and I brought small cakes, frosted pink in
baskets lined with fine wax paper, a bunch of lilies
mayhaws. perhaps relapsing into music,

never speech

to pay for the adventure; sipping green glassed
colas, dipping into the bowls of dark cherry vanilla.

I'll wash the gay sprigged teacups up
in a sink full of bubbles, extra rainbowed
on occasion. what did we care for chores.

yes! I said and it was cherry branching
happiness we shuttled through the loom
of her fantstical rooms with the

ruby candlesticks. the windows
opening wide to the snowlight
and slowed molasses, God's best Gingerbread:

Time...

mary angela douglas 4 september 2015