Paco, Mum And Me

Months since he’d watched her cook and loop
a rogue strand of hair from her cheek,
months that had just concertinaed
like abandoned cars being scrapped.
This is how I still replay him,
stood at the door, back for that night.
She chopped a carrot, glanced and grinned.
I stroked my doll and let them talk,
not showing I’d noticed her arm
cup his head en route to the salt.


* Matthew Stewart lives between West Sussex and Extremadura, Spain. He
blogs on UK and Spanish poetry at http://roguestrands.blogspot.com and
his pamphlet collection will be published by Happenstance Press in
2011.