The departed

To my mother

They watch us, coolly, from their beds of slate.
They regard us, with their sepia eyes –
The obscure and those who are merely great.
Their pale image offers no surprise.
They have left us, into eternal night,

Slipped into the darkness, like rusty ships.

They do not smile. They are in black and white.

Our warm faces will never touch their lips.

All has been evened out, even their sin.
They have dissolved, into the great shade.
Only the newly-gone can prick our skin
Although a colour photograph can fade.
She drew me to her breast on happy days.
Now she has gone away, her picture stays.


Note: the photograph was taken in a studio in Cairo – my mum was in the the women's army, the  ATS – in 1942 or ’43. She would have been about 17, having run away from home in Coventry at 15 and lied about her age to join the service.