soon it will be time to turn off the TV, to make you piss and brush your teeth



to have an argument about getting dressed, which is an argument I have with my

mother about the slingshot of ageing and

how she never told me I was happy


it’s me standing on a small chair so that the time-gap between us expands like that from a needy mouth to a breast or another mouth
it’s my mother’s mother – my mother finally just that – leaving her again in a taxi for the airport and quiet, childless places

only looking back when a letter arrives to tell her that my brother, tiny then, peddled the dock of the driveway

our mother’s arms a jaw saying stop – she’s not worth it