An Afternoon Nap
At the house of Granma Grace artefacts line each shelf. There's a lady in a yellow dress, she's been waltzing for years – decades – caught in a turn, petticoats fixed in a spin - she looks to her absent partner. There's a lady in festive red, and three more china beauties above dressed for spring, delicate, all looking to an absent return of gaze. On the room's highest shelf a china couple are fixed, blue and white, a dab of yellow, an accordion on his lap, they both look ahead. Toby jugs flank them, one has a roughly groomed beard. Below, in her adjustable chair, Granma nods her head in sleep. Myself, sat on the sofa adjacent, I would not pick out her life in figurines. I would think of a tablecloth - something just as pretty with cotton lace, with embroidered flowers, with variable shades of white where food stains had been scrubbed out, where one of us had spilt ketchup, another had splashed wine. Today I heated her breakfast milk, sh