A stiff photograph in sepia tones of a young Victorian woman in a dark high-necked dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves, her hair upswept; my grandmother, a seafarer's daughter who lived with us when I was small and who carried me around downstairs all one night to soothe my feverish pain.
french windows ―
a flash
of knitting needles
Ocasionally someone called the Insurance Man came to the door about her funeral and she came down from her bedroom to give him money.
long wooden chest ―
clack of mottled shells,
bears' claws
Her room became mine when she went to live somewhere called The Woodside Home. Sometimes we visited her there. In a gloomy interior, old lady in a dark dress with white hair upswept.
smooth insides
of sweet chestnut cases ―
crunch of green spines
by Diana Webb
London, England
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