I believe it was during April 2024 we were asked to write about someone we knew/know. As ever when given a brief I'm bamboozled. In the end, this just bubbled to the surface. Mother was a weaver in Bradford, - a woof is a thread running from start to finish of a piece of fabric; Dad was part-Welsh...
Half shades of softer colours
mark the woof thread
of all my saintly sacrifice - and wanton criminality
You can’t leave yourself behind
and I follow it just so
as it goes with me
rocked and hummed
crawled and climbed
fallen, scraped,
the last laugh
the deepest sob
Such needle craft in her own summer dresses
met me after the chalky tub-thump and
baffling blackboard (stinking of sun-warmed milk)
And on holy days the suit of grey
coloured softly
(with grannies’ brooch)
sunny as her smile
brighter than the clackety black beads
and dull silver Marys and saints
that jingle to her sussurant sibilance
scything softly in secret prayer
Those ringlets and Victorian tresses
strapped back with a diamanté slide
so’s not to offend god
Hail Mummy, full of grace, I thought -
offending him anyway
She held my imminent priesthood
close as my big brother,
square-bashing the peace in Berlin
Close as the flying Snowdonian rock
who found her in her woven home
How saintly did she bear the holy fathers’
passing over me like dark spectres
Or even my later foul-mouthed renunciation?
Did the woof break? No, it colours me still
in echoes of men in black, fingering tasseled hats
muttering gloria in unum deum
In Mavis, her friend who is buried nearby
In the bike I keep against her will
In the life I have and if I’m honest
closest to me in return