Nobody’s Business Poem by Dónall Dempsey

She had a picture
of herself
in her head
the one her Mum
always treasured

in the big family
album
the one when she was 2
held by disembodied hands
on a disembodied knee
her mum always laughing
telling her how

she had weed down
her uncle’s knee
and he in his nice new suit.
She has no memory of this but
she had been told this so often
it was as if she remembered it
herself.
It was someone else’s memory.
“You was glowering
at the camera

like you was Winston Churchill
all you needed was a big fat cigar
in your little kisser
and you was him
giving the famous fingers! ”
She always thought
she looked
like an ugly pug.
“Happy 92! ”
someone’s scrawl shouted
from a cheap card
by the bedside locker
in the nursing home

that wasn’t the home
she knew.
You can’t mislay
a home now
...can you?
And who were
all these strangers
waltzing in and out
of her house
traipsing about
like nobody’s business.
The wilted flowers
in the chipped vase
smiling weakly.