All Our Grieving Mothers, by Tom Velho

Ode to Necrophilia, Mexico City, 1962 (Leonora Carrington), by Kati Horna (Mexico, b. Hungary) 1962

All Our Grieving Mothers 
 
In this room, a flame casts its veiled shadow.
A mother, barefoot by the unmade bed,
clutches herself through silken shawl and lace, 
graceful as an alabaster death mask.
 
Her heart, a stricken bird trembling between 
life and mortality – the sputtering engine 
of language, of memory. Through the window, 
 
the trees are not trees but silence itself, 
shrouded in the stinging abstraction of 
day: a brightness so full it burns the eye.

Tom Velho

Tom Velho is a poet and teacher from London. By day he teaches Modern Languages and Literature. He has had work in Red Ogre Review, Overheard, and The Delinquent. Twitter: @velho_tom