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After
The lemonade stands
tall as
across the river,
from this angle.
I'm sitting in the Founders Arms.
One thought in heaven,
one rescued by an icy drink,
this sweltering August day.
The day after the lights went out
a hundred years ago
all over
Suddenly, the presence of
my aged aunt hovers, hugs me.
I smell the whiff of style,
the snazzy home sewn clothes
in heady post war fabrics.
The daring solitary foreign travel.
I'm back in her new styled Swedish
living room with striking grey
and white striped wallpaper
('what will Gladys do next?')
and
Oceans of books:
a poetry sucker.
Losing her lover in the First war
she went for gold,
seized a career.
Became a
who saw a dinner line of six year olds
strafed by a lone German bomber
in her playground.
Post war an endless peace worker,
the UN a faith,
campaigns for equal pay for woman,
church committees.
'It's a life' she'd say.
There's a good view of heaven
from here, hanging over
I see my aunt clamber up,
dragging her gammy leg.
She's saying something, perhaps:
'heaven is not such a cliche after all'
She smiles her BOAC stewardess smile,
(Better On A Camel was her joke),
and leaves me to the shocking now.
The bar is charging up :
it's Happy Hour.
A notice says my table is reserved
from 6.30 for Fabio.
This lemonade can weep into itself.
The Millennium bridge smiles me
to a rousing crossing.
Cheers, Fabio.
Liz Callingham