Nana Joyce
I will remember the smell
of your face cream,
the gargantuan inventory
spilling across the kitchen table,
you sat in front of the mirror,
kept your routine,
bottles and boxes of magical stuff,
baffling my tiny mind,
I couldn’t wait to play
with my own potions.
You never let a soul go hungry,
we’d sneak to the kitchen
whilst my mother wasn’t looking,
biscuits and sandwiches and
Grandad Ernie’s secret toffees,
sharing them together,
shushing and giggling,
leaving a crumb-trailed path
at the end of every heist.
Foxes were your friends,
cats too, big and small,
and they’d gather in your garden,
the safest hedges on the street,
and we all knew you shouldn’t,
that most had homes, had other people,
but ‘most’ wasn’t all, and you were always
all or nothing,
those plates of ham upon concrete tiles,
how could we ever say no?
I’ve grown as stubborn as you.
I know you’re happy
in an angel’s embrace,
amongst loved ones you once knew,
those precious people who existed
before I was ever born,
you are with a God who gave you comfort,
as these stories grant me mine,
with a smile I’ll retell your tale,
one of a woman, fiercely kind.
In loving memory of Joyce Elizabeth Dean, 1927–2022. Beloved Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother.
