Camera Obscura

Eight-year-old sitting in Bramhall’s field,

shoes scuffed from kicking a stone,

too young for a key but old enough now

to walk the short mile back from school.

You’ve spied your mother down in the village

crossing the street, purse in her fist.

In her other hand her shopping bag nurses

four ugly potatoes caked in mud,

a boiling of peas, rags of meat, or a tail of fish

in grease-proof paper, the price totted up

in penciled columns of shillings and pence.

How warm must she be in that winter coat?

On Old Mount Road the nearer she gets

the smaller she shrinks, until you reach out

to carry her home on the flat of your hand

or your fingertip, and she doesn’t exist.