It's Still Life

Memories of a Wheel of Wind

She was like that.
A wheel of wind.
My mother possessed the kitchen
when she made bread.
I watched in wonder,
her softness of motion as she
stood in a white floury cloud.
Stretching dough.
She’d slap her hands on her apron,
flour dust rising like scattered smoke.
Everything seemed veiled
in a wintery leak of sunlight.

I was a crumb of a child.
She was the soprano.

Safety Matches and Other Falsehoods

When I was six,
I struck the red tip of a safety match
against the pavement in the garage.

I came to love the smell of sulphur,
and that burst of hot energy that
danced on a stick of wood.

Burnt my thumb once —
only once though. It blistered up
all big and juicy, and Mum said,

If you play with matches, you’ll
burn something. I tried smoking
a few years later …

 
Written for Twiglet #118 and Poetic Blooming #239 “Nurture”