Christmas dinner has left us
lethargically conversing in cliches,
pausing to say,
“Could you pass the pudding?”
But she has come unstuck again,
and her crinkled eyes stare straight past us
and our plumped guts
and into 1940.
Staring into shrill sirens and shambles,
snuffing out illegal candles,
before running like hell
through the blackout.
She’s fourteen and headed to night school,
racing past a leveled convent.
Beneath the rubble,
a nun shouts.
The lightning war flash passes,
and she’s back, surrounded by grandkids—
a gaggle of flushed cheeks
and full bellies.
But the scene is hazed,
and our faces are vague.
As if we
are watery memories.
pm poetry 