Jean Atkin

grandmothers

When the grandmothers were let out of prison
they began to darn
for now only the rich could afford new clothes
what with cottons second-hand and good wool
to be had only black market.

The grandmothers darned. They mended cuffs
and necks and elbows. Stitched up holes in pockets.
All winter, they mended even
the fairytales of snow, yes, the snow
that was before the time of rain.

The grandmothers threaded their needles and
told folktales to the children. How you steered
your sledge with your boots, behind you.

The grandmothers snipped their threads and
the children opened their mouths in wonder,
imagining snowflakes falling on their tongues

how cold each one was, and then gone.

TAle

Then, when I forgot to close my window at night
the room filled up with legs and wings.
I learned to scoop the daddy-long-legs in my palm
so they were tapping hands in my shut fingers
until I soft-pushed them outside again.

Or cupped dusty moths in a beer glass, lidding it
with a postcard. I’d watch the strangeness of their furred
and owlish faces, listen to the panicked whirr of wings.
The small silences they left as they flew to twilight.

Now we leave the windows flung wide
in the heated evenings. We leave the lamps lit.
The streets glow. The gardens glow.
And nothing, nothing happens.

Jean Atkin’s most recent books are Fan-peckled (Fair Acre Press), poems about the lost words of Shropshire, and The Bicycles of Ice and Salt (Indigo Dreams Publishing) in 2021. Her poetry has won competitions, been commissioned, anthologised, and featured on BBC Radio 4. She was BBC National Poetry Day Poet for Shropshire 2019 and Troubadour of the Hills for Ledbury Poetry Festival. Recent work has appeared in Raceme, Pennine Platform and Finished Creatures. She works as a poet in education and community.