Beautiful Day

in memory of my mother, Teresa

The sheets are billowing on the clothes’ lines;

they’re  between us, so I walk across the grass unseen;

I know she’ll be delighted; I’m not expected home for months yet.

I see the top of her head as she’s hangs up another,

and I’m guessing there are two wooden pegs in her mouth;

I put my arms around her from behind.

And the sheets are doing the dance they do in the wind,

kicking up wildly to their own rhythmless tattoo.

Away, over the garden hedges, sheets from many gardens

are escaping across the July sky, as wheeling swallows

are notes that have broken free from their staves;

Mam, I know it now: our days are short, but aren’t they beautiful?