"Cuddles"
The nursing home claimed to
“Add life to dwindling days”
On faces with granite eyes
The staff wore fixed smiles
Masking the reality
Stark raw
Stinking mortality.
According to the family rota
It was my turn to visit her
I stood outside the door
Putting on a ‘nice to see you, mother’
Face and focussing
On scanty happy memories
Few and far between.
Mum,
Hunched,
Pillow propped in bed
A broken reed
Hinting of Dettol and pee
A shrivelled grotesque
Oblivious to the incongruity
Of her cuddly Pudsey onesie.
“Ma, you look wonderful tonight.”
“Get your bleeding hair cut
Scruffy bleeder, you're showing me up.”
“I like the onesie...nice threads."
Unused chairs around the bed,
"No visitors?"
Mum shrugged, "Who cares?
What you brung me?"
"A bunch of lilies... ”
“Ow many times have I told you?
Don’t waste bleedin’ money on flowers.
You ain’t too big for a clip.”
“And tinned pears...
Del Monte…
Halved Bartletts....
Your favourites…”
"Heavy syrup?"
"Sorry, old girl,
Too much sugar's
Not good for yer...
The Spar sold out of spam ‘n'
I got you salmon instead
…John West - the best.”
“It'll have to do...
What about me Special Brew?
I’m so bleedin knackered.
It's pitch black in here
Switch the bleedin' lights on
I can hardly see your ugly mug,
Scruffy bugger.”
“It's not quite dark yet, Ma
But getting there.”
She gazed somewhere
Perhaps infinity
Chatting, young, giggly girly
To someone out of sight to me.
I wiped her face
Brushed her hair
And wished for a surer deeper
Sleep to engulf her
Wash her gently
Into the farther ocean
Beyond all harms.
“You watching me dog?”
A nod from me,
She spread her arms
“Come, give your old Ma a hug.
And sing Bluebells for
Your dad and me.
He used to sing it wonderful, he did
He was just saying ‘ow much he loved it.”
I sang, [I’ll be your sweetheart]
For her, for him, for them.
Mum hugged me.
She stiffened
Her finger nails clawed my back
Holding vice like, tight
Against the dark good night
She would not
Could not
Go gently.
I kissed her forehead
Gazing at the suddenly
Shining
Radiant
Young girl face
Then knelt, kissed her cheek,
“Bon voyage, Ma.”
suki spangles
Thu 1st Sep 2016 09:55
This is superb!