trout

Red Glorious

Sonya Yelich

My grandmother is long dead with her porous bones
spreading through the earth & new motorway links to the left of her ear –
her noisy tongue adrift on the first words she spoke
Milk, cheese, meat.

*

Her eyebrows released of all that hair
& the parting of her legs with grey pubic shreds of frail curls.
The threadbare lips of her mouth and the way she swallowed the English
& handed back her own language of finite verbs & a mix of plush nouns –
to the postman atop his red glorious bike –
his mail from other lands. His packets.
And the trailing of clouds from alcoves of nameless streets.
The breakage of her blood vessels loose to the dirt spill.

*

Today – years later – the obstacle of the cemetery plot.
The way we conjure. The way we wave to the names on headstones –
as though there lies someone in the silt.