“I couldn’t live at your mam’s
It’s like a show house. Spotless.”
One of my girlfriends once said.

Tidy mam’s breath gusts over her own grave,
scrubs cold winter debris away,

her quick fragrant spring rain spray
polishes the surface as dead leaf

and blown bud dusters rub
the Yorkshire stone black letters

to a sparkle, feed the vase of flowers,
whose heads move toward the sun.