Theatr y Castell, Aberystwyth THE BUILDING RECALLS
'Mum, when are you going to stop acting?'
my sister recalls a question, not answer.
The building recalls Wardens, AmDram Aber
and my mother centre stage
as ever, taking the spotlight
in any lounge or kitchen.
She never gave away anything,
her best role reserved for visitors
was Shocking Pink, as if conversation
began and ended with 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'.
It wasn't make up, but layers
of skin which concealed the truth;
hardened for years into sediments
like the chalklands of Cambridgeshire
we escaped to from my father.
She was all over Darlings
even when she let me go at eighteen
with a rail timetable, to find my home.
'Mum! When are you going to stop....?'
In the hospital bed, screaming the heat
of scorching veins, her dead weight
winched up and down, keening before her time.
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