Jill Harrison

Penny whistle for my mother's first husband

Cutting through tiers of smoke,

Guinness in wet glasses,

sweat in the palms of an accordion player,

the clear note cleaved its way beyond that Kerry pub,

past pan pipes, flutes, recordings by James Galway,

to an earlier time.

My mother.

An Irish club somewhere in Manchester.

Patrick Walsh playing a fiddle.

I felt that sudden relaxation in the bowel,

that softening of tightness in a pelvic floor

clenched against distress.

This is how he won her.

Recognition, head lolling now, of mountains

and endless seas flowing through a woman's blood.

The glimpses she had of a different kind of life.

Sing to me again.

Wind me in.

Fill me with love's conviction.

Give me a girl's hope,

a mother's wisdom,

the stillness of mountains touching water.