To Meet Again
Your mother died
a peaceful death
no heart attack
no fight
for breath
no death rattle
into the night
just a sudden
departure
like a switched out light
all her long life
concluding in this
a gentle going
death's soft kiss
a daughter
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poem by Terry Collett
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Flypapers at Auntie's House.
Flypapers hung in the kitchen
Of Auntie’s house. Death traps
For flies that buzzed at their ends
Or buzzed noisily from surface
To surface unaware the brown
Sticky strips were there to trap.
You stared at the long brown strips
Covered in flies, some buzzed fruitlessly,
Others were quiet and still, having
Given up the will to buzz or make noise
Just hanging there black corpses on
Brown paper, a graveyard swaying in
The draught from the wide open door
To buzz and fly and irritate no more.
poem by Terry Collett
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His Tongue.
His tongue entered
your ear
licked the rim
and lobe
and made its way
down your neck
becoming dry
as it reached
never mind that now
he never told you
he had a wife
back in L.A.
and that she
was dying
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poem by Terry Collett
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Before Choir
She pulled you
into the porch
of the church
and kissed your
lips while others
made their way
inside for choir
practice and no
one seemed to
miss you for the
time it took for
a kiss or two and
as you made your
way back around
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poem by Terry Collett
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After Gym
After gym
before the tediousness
of double maths
she went with you
and sat on the bench
on the playing field
watching the sky
turn from blue
to grey
rain
she said
is on the way
but still you sat
and talked
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poem by Terry Collett
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In The Moonlight
In the moonlight
you saw how she
would look down
the corridor of years
waking in the middle
of the night calling
your name because
you had left the bed
to go for a pee or a
glass of milk to drink.
The moonlight would
not be the same moonlight
then and probably you
thought you wouldn’t be
there anyway someone
else would occupy the bed
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poem by Terry Collett
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Mother Silent
Those days are over now
you and your mother
sitting in the garden
she with her posh lady hat
and you in your cap
to keep the sun
from your balding head
she maybe muttering
but mostly still
and quiet and looking
as best she could
at the birds coming and going
as they picked up bread
now she is still
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poem by Terry Collett
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Every Day
Every day she sat
opposite you on
the bus looking
beyond you not
at you or turning
her head to some
other view than you
and she would mouth
words silently as if
in some secret prayer
and maybe her god
was invisibly sitting
there and whoever
sat next to her and
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poem by Terry Collett
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Drink It Down
Drink it down,
Mother said,
it's good
for the bowels;
it'll stop you
feeling bunged up
and unable to shit.
The spoonful
tasted foul,
it clung
to your tongue
like black glue,
brought
your stomach
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poem by Terry Collett
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I Guess
I guess that's it, huh?
no more wearing
the wife's new clothes,
Don said sadly,
no more trying on
those dresses she gets
from that shop
on the high street,
no more pulling on
those panties and tights
when she's out
with her friends at nights.
I guess that's it,
no more dressing up
in her bikini
and doing the catwalk
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poem by Terry Collett
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