2024 LISTEN ANTHOLOGY

echoes of my mother

is there anything else

you want to know? 

last night I tidied echoes of my mother

combed through fading photos

the farm girl, war years, fiancé’s death —

today I sit, wait, stitch her name

in nighties, cardigans, a dressing gown, fold her

inside a room, too small to hold her

she tidies memories, I listen —

is there anything else you want to know?

— our worlds recalibrate

lifetimes ricochet between 

her bed my chair, my hand

and hers, my eyes and hers, her lips

my mouth and hers — her voice

so frail now — confounds my wish to ask

to start back at the start, reboot, or

just complete the gaps — if I ask

will she summon strength

fight morphine mists, retrace

the space between —  if I ask

will I keep her here

keep her here

keep her?

Yvonne Patterson