Nana’s ghosts gnawed through her walls.

Mum and aunts scale bow-legged ladders,
scrape paper, bury leaves of it

in pilling carpet. Autumnal crunch. Mum
makes Nana reinscribe her living room

with colours Grandad never would have
chosen. We scrawl on naked scraps

of palimpsest, in crayon. She cannot
watch; Nana’s propped on her walker

at the sink, fingers itching temples.
She insists we use old tea towels –

save the pristine ones for later.