Her hands hover over the fruit
She picks up a pear, half turns
from the bench, pauses,
puts the pear down.
Her hands hover over the fruit.
Click on her hands.
They held, they soothed, lifted,
stirred and mended, turned on and
off taps, switches, bedroom lights.
They stitched, folded, carried, chose
Turned pages of a million books
knew just what they were doing.
Her eyes wander over the fruit
Definition is dimmed
The shutter closing over the light
Click on her eyes
There are the Himalayas upright
like toys in a row in the shelf
there is an ocean she looked back across
here is a child, or a man, or a child, or a man, or a child.
Words leap from pages, from her eyes to her self
Everything she wanted and didn’t want to see.
She stands at the sink bench
Her back eighty three years straight
Now it looks ready for wings
Click on her back.
At ten years straight to hide from teasing
Fifteen years straight to hide the scream
Twenty five years straight to keep
happiness in perspective.
Thirty five to bear burdens and babies
Fifty as a matter of principle
Sixty a matter of pride
Eighty three because that’s how
it’s always been — straight.
Her mind slides over the fruit, they
do not have names, they are
how they feel, they are their
weight, they are a bit of a problem.
Click on her mind.
The roads once led to cities
buildings are emptying fast
the lifts are crowded
streets without signposts
behind closed doors the
sound of conversation,
Her heart beats onwards
under the tidy pink shirt
under the mottle of skin
the bird hollow ribs
Click on her heart.
Click on her heart — there’s the crying child
Click on her heart — there’s the tight stored fury
Click on her lips — there’s her smile,
Click on my mother and she’ll disappear
into that tiny pinprick of light in
the centre of my screen
then that too will be gone
she will dance beyond all this, beyond
hands, sight, mind, heart and windows.
Sarah Delahunty
