Poems from the funeral 5/6

The Difference


My hair's gone wild for the weekend -
A good thing, too.
Glad it can tell the difference,
Sometimes the rest of me can't. >

Poems from the funeral 4/6

Of Hearts and Sleeves and Keys and Things


We didn't wear lockets
of hair or tiny pictures
or gold bracelets
with heart-shaped padlocks
in my family or signet rings
or bluebirds of happiness
or even charm bracelets.


Were they wanton
in some unmentionable way
precursor to wearing your heart
on your sleeve
or maybe idolatrous
like those pretty statues
and plastic shrines
in the mysterious windows
of Pellegrini's
or heathen hocus-pocus things
or merely worldly?


Maybe that's why
though I treasure yours
I don't offer you my door-key?

Poems from the funeral 3/6

Death of a Cat
I've buried a tawny frogmouth, Mum,
a bush-pigeon and an echidna
I'll find a special tree
for Ms Puss


Ms Puss
who'd kept herself aloof
except for him
the little boy meantime grown man
Ms Puss, once Mrs whose name
he'd changed at the vet's -
after her operation, Mum -
Ms Puss they carried on a board
from the road
after the children heard her cry

Poems from the funeral 2/6

The Makings

The fright of a
Fuck!
or
Jesus!
screamed
into my mothering ear!

The words themselves
additional to the fact
of teenage anger
accessories to the fact
bring their own
particular pain,
spikes on the mallet
that beats my head.

Later, she admonishes
my tears of shock,
and shame, bourgeois fear:
'I didn't tell you to
Fuck off!"
Will I learn
the fine gradations?
Do I ever want to?
Must I?
Or will it soon be over?

I have become a prude for her
as my mother before me for me.