Pimento Poets: Meet the Poets: Sue Flower

Homecoming

I take the Romany’s sprigged heather,
tuck its pink tight buds curled like
baby fists tight as a talisman,
blue with longing, into my bag

I am pierced mid-flight
by a hint of traveller she sees
within – an Irish woman 
On the grandmother side

Ellen Glancy unschooled, catholic
in tastes and religion, 
Pawned her soul for potatoes
that lay rotting,bleeding
into darkened sod

Her pilgrimage to England
and Alfred, then retracing steps
to Enniskillen for the wedding,
returning   to peg washing
not in a whipped north-easterly
which cut the souls

Back cross grey waters
fretful and choppy, till her own
broke a tidal wave, her firstborn.
Homesick for emerald patches,
 a mercurial sky tilting meniscus
struggling for freedom

Iron rain lashes my face,
her slashed smile a rent petticoat.
Merging the troubles one with another,
I take her hand in mine,
it lies still but warm, without
need for words

C. Susan Flower 2012