ONE AND ONE

ONE AND ONE

She had forgotten how to count.
‘One and one,’ I said.
Fast answer.
‘Seventeen.’
‘Not quite.’ A long frowning silence.
‘Let’s try again.’ I said.

She was in a room of her own
Down a long brown corridor.
And she hated it.
Couldn’t remember how she’d got there
But the silence, the empty spaces, the bare walls,
With no-one to talk to or smile at,
And no-one to talk to her or smile back,
Just piled sadness on sadness.

Then, her eyes clearing,
‘Thirty-nine,’ she cried.
Until reading my face, frowned and went on,
‘That’s probably wrong.’

‘If only George was here,’ she fretted.
‘He’d soon put things right.’
But my Dad was long gone,
His warmth and kindness
Lying under a marble headstone
And a bunch of daffodils.
IN LOVING MEMORY
Tick-tocking above his good name.

‘One and one. Seventeen,’ she tried again.

I was tempted to let that go.
After all, seventeen wasn’t that far from one.
When suddenly, surprising us both,
‘Two!’ she rapped out. ‘One and one make two.’
And the long sun slid across the wall,
Her eyes closed. Tired now,
Half sleep, she whispered, ‘Do you remember
The Kingfisher swooping over green water?’

© GWEN GRANT