Her Son’s Keeper

1
The woman in the next house
is turning into my grandmother,
is turning into stone.

Behind the blue-green agate of her eyes
is the knowledge she protects
even as she dissembles.

But I’ve seen the candle, burning late,
and she must have heard my footsteps
passing by.

2
Suspicion hardens into certainty, into dread,
slowing blood and tongue, flesh and sinew,
crystallising old rage.

We wait for the truth
the way we wait for a storm,
to open all our windows and our doors,

to free her for that long run
on stone legs
to the sea.