Minster Towers
I sit where I always sit in the pink chair with wings.
There are no magazine or papers here.
My mother’s eyes close, her pinnie dappled with porridge
Her hands warming mine. Blue hands. Blue from my walk
Across Saturday market, across the car park
Through the door that only lets you in.
I sit where I always sit in the pink chair with wings.
Jean shrieks, My mother died, then my brother died.
My father, he had cancer.
We drink tea. We watch the blossom blow.
I was ready to go. I wanted to go. They were mean.
We remember the sea. We talk of the waves. We feel the cold.
I got ready in my dress. They were mean
Because they wouldn’t let me go.
Jean remembers the sea and its waves and wants to see them again.
My mother cradles the past like a favourite child
Too wrapped in her world to risk the outside.
Marg Roberts writes poems and prose. Her poems have been published in Orbis, Cannon’s Mouth, Coffee House. She was Warwick’s Poet Laureate 2009-10. Some of her published work can be found at : margspoems.weebly. com.
Note: Minster Towers was the name of a residential home in Yorkshire for people with dementia.