‘What my grandfather sees at 90’ by Catherine Ayres

What my grandfather sees at 90

Dawn in the boiler’s long sigh
A misdirected piss in warm toes
A broken cup in the taste of salt
A daughter’s face in softness under his palms
The afternoon sliced by a clock
Donna’s smile in the smell of Silk Cut
Forgotten shoes in a slap from the floor
Nightfall in the birds’ silence
Florence at the front door in 1945,
a swallow’s shadow in her outstretched arms.
Every goose bump.
 
 
 
Catherine Ayres is a teacher who lives in Northumberland. Her poems have appeared in a number of print and online magazines, including Ink, Sweat and Tears and The Moth. She recently came third in the Hippocrates Prize. She has a pamphlet with Black Light Engine Room Press and her first collection will be published by Indigo Dreams next year. She helps to edit the online magazine The Fat Damsel and can be found on Facebook as Selkirk Ayres.