Lower Hardgrave Road
At the end of the street
where basil meets jasmine
the casa of the Signora stood,
centred on an icon of the Sacred
Heart from her native Firenze.
Signora toiled at her sewing
machine, her doleful widow's face
puckered and seamed
as she earned the fees
to school her children
in martyred saints' hagiographies.
By night she patrolled
her dim-lit cell, reciting
insomniac rosaries, while I,
caught out by the household curfew,
scrabbled at coldly-bolted windows,
urgently tapping to rouse her son,
deaf to my pleas of 'Let me in, Johnny!'
fearing his mother's stony opprobrium,
watching me leave unchaperoned,
taking shortcuts to danger
with predatory strangers.
Feckless, importunate tenants like me
could never be trusted with Signora's house-key...
1. A room at the Signora s
© Copyright: Jena Woodhouse, 2008
Свидетельство о публикации №108071000756
Свидетельство о публикации №108071000756
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