Do you remember when we sauntered
Down Kirlegate
Into the peabody fields
Of long owl bottomed tablelands
Of sheets of ice over grass
That broke when we walked
Like knives and forks
On the dinner table
A Christmas in the dining room
With the big dark brown wooden legs
And sitting up straight
And well behaving
Accidents and incidents
Of birth
But in our mother's sphere
where the
Birthday parties were
And the weight of those thick walls
And the texture of the wall paper
I can almost touch
The convex mirror
Set in black twisted leaves
And our grandmother
Like a presence known
Without even being there
And now she, our mother
Waves a hand through thin air
Does not fully know
I'm there, perhaps can hardly see
Except on certain days
And times
When the curtains in her mind
Draw back enough
Or align
To allow a polarized light through
And spotlight
In the dusty air
Again back on that table spare
In the dining room
All those moons
Ago
When we were young and her children
And not her adult helpers
But how is identity defined?
Just a shroud a cover over us
That lasts for a certain time
Until we must slough off the skin
And grow
Or change
It's strange, isn't it strange?
