Powerful water currents lured my mother
particularly those sucking at the harbour wall,
but she never spoke of her real fear,
wouldn’t use its common name —
even when it took her.
Aging doesn’t teach us courage, we just lie.
When you mention another change in how you are
I instantly worry, but don’t press for details,
willing it to pass, comparing it to my own fails.
What a fraud one generation fastens on the next,
never telling Youth how their bodies will betray them.
Mine attacked itself, so I’ve learnt not to trust it.
I could list our gradual physical failures,
blissfully ignorant of the entries that remain
to complete the card to the end game.
We talk of how we might go, as if offered choice.
Bravely, in her bath, your Grannie drowned herself,
fully clothed, as befitting a modest woman’s belief.
You have spoken of treading the beach calmly,
walking without pause into the waiting sea.
Women have an affinity with the cradle of life.
