Grave Considerations

by Tina Cole

Today I bought white lilies

for women who were never given flowers,

their images collage in a flurry

like autumn leaf litter surprised by a sudden gust.

My maiden aunts,

the last disciples of crimplene,

who passed tepid Ovaltine days

under the whine of the Home Service

and woke to absence in single beds

in a house filled with lavender polished quiet.

I wondered if they ever smoked unfiltered,

red lipped and bottle blonded did they dodgem bump

the tongues of neighbours, thread grey lives

with skeins of gossip, risk all on G.I. promises?

But what pleases me most

is the fickle nature of memory

this self-indulgence

and voluntary turning of the tap,

how we can customise the past

and remember the brightest colours.

* * * * *

Tina Cole is a retired education consultant who lives in rural Herefordshire. She delights in poetry that speaks about relationships and how people manage their inner worlds. Her collection – I Almost Knew You – published in 2015 deliberately brings those relationships into view. Other poems have been published in U.K. magazines and journals such as, (Mslexia, Aesthetica & Decanto), one in The Guardian newspaper and in several recent anthologies. In 2018 she won third place in the Army – Writing Armistice National Competition and second place in the Canterbury Poet of the Year. She is the organiser of the Children’s Poetry Competition; poetryintenbury.org.