In my mother's house,
a bouquet of tattered lace
abandoned in the corner
waits for a gesture of remembrance. . .
She left it there,
silent memory of days past -
unwanted,
gasping for breath,
an existence spent in a cupboard
waiting for a release from forgetting.

In my mother's house
there are things in the closets that I will never be rid of,
whispering of shadows. . .

My steps hush each other,
splashing through a wash of watercolour light
from the stained-glass window in the stairwell.
I bump against a bedpost and startle the ghosts -
unkempt grey and muddy white -
hovering over my shoulder in mouldered shreds.

 She was too old to weep -
 her life eclipsed by the grime of years
 like the colours of the window,
 too old to hide a basket of hopes
 beneath her pillow,
 too old to fall asleep...

(How much do we remember - then choose to forget?)