Great Aunt Lucy

Crossed knives agin scrubbed table top,
spilled salt our Billy didn't mop,
a fretting magpie on the gate,
or four leaf clover worn too late.

She cast these runes some years before -
'you put the wrong foot through the door!'
(and looked at a new moon through glass)
Greek tragedy shall come to pass.
Whit Sunday, baby's nails were cut;
she hears oak coffin-lids screwed shut
and laments loud, as if obscene,
your chosen coat of evergreen.

Her Friday pleasure, post spread wide,
'who'd a thought it, guess who died?'
There'll be a wake, forced meat, crab, tongue,
and, after, crude port-sodden song.

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

First published in The Yellow Crane,
Spring 98, 12, 24.