This collection was on Forward Prize short list, and the complexities of the relationship between Alan and his Mother shared within it are compelling.
LAUNDERETTE: HER LAST NIGHTDRESS
A cotton one with a few flowers and a bit of lace
At the neck, her name-tag stitched inside, it falls
From my bag of socks and shirts and smalls
And looks so innocent, so out of place
I see her again, hot and flustered in the ward
We took her to, and helpless, late at night
When even she admitted ‘something wasn’t right’
And I left her waving, and she sort of smiled
To say I mustn’t worry, must get on,
Get back, to sleep, to work, to my important life.
Next day, I went to M&S, I bought
The nightdress she had asked for as an afterthought
And took it in to her, and she put it on
And loved it – no more the sad, unreconciled,
Bewildered woman I had fought, no more
My father’s tetchy, disappointed wife:
Girlish almost. So it was what she wore
Until one day I walked in and found her lying
In a hospital gown, so starched and plain
and straitlaced, with strings that needed tying
While this pretty one had gone into her drawer -
The something that was wrong had made a stain,
A stench I took away with me somehow
To wash, and forgot about till now
I stand here in the warm soap-smelling air
But can’t remember why, and people stare.
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